Locals Puzzled By 'Panic Buying' at Chiswick Sainsbury’s
Other stores on the High Road empty while queues formed in supermarket
Picture: Sky News
Chiswick attracted national press attention last weekend with a report on Sky News showing lengthy queues at the large Sainsbury’s supermarket.
There were long lines of people with heavily laden trollies going over the middle aisle in the store. The rush occurred early on Sunday afternoon (15 March) and was captured on video. People were being prevented from entering the supermarket because it was becoming so overcrowded.
One of the managers spoke to chiswickw4.com and said the store was overwhelmed by what he believed was panic buying.
The incident perplexed many people locally who were unconvinced this was simply a matter of panic buying by people concerned about the coronavirus. Such scenes were not widespread across the country and some people who were in the store at the time believe it had more to do with factors specific to this particular branch.
Lucy Cartwright who was in the store at the time said, “I had never seen anything like it there before. All the stuff on my list was available as far as I could see but as the aisles were all blocked it was impractical to continue shopping. I just used the self-checkout, where the queues weren’t too bad, to buy what was accessible and then went to the High Road where, to my surprise Marks and Waitrose were really quiet.
“The car park was also really crowded and the barriers were up. They could have stopped more cars coming in when the lines started to build up. I think a lot of people do their weekly big shop there because it is one of the few stores in the area with a big car park. Also delivery slots with the online grocery firms are now often over a week away so people are being forced to do their shopping in person.”
Another unfortunate shopper who was in the store told us, “It was a shambles. There were too few people on the tills and too few tills. Since they have given more space over to self-checkout and the hand held self-service gizmos they have cut the number of staff working the tills so it isn’t a surprise that this happens. It only takes a bit of a hold up for big queues to develop. I don’t think this should have been reported as being indicative of a state of panic in Chiswick.”
Reportedly by about 3.30pm the queues had cleared.
We have put the points raised about raising the barriers in the car park and the lack of manned tills to Sainsbury’s but have yet to receive a reply.
You will have seen that we put restrictions in place this week to ensure that more products are on shelf for longer. From Monday 23rd March, we are consolidating our opening hours and all our supermarkets will be open from 8am to 8pm, Monday-Saturday, including those with an Argos store. Sunday opening, Sainsbury’s Local and petrol station opening times will stay the same.
This means we can focus our store colleagues’ time on keeping shelves stocked and serving our customers well during the times that most of you are already shopping.
Last Thursday, we set aside an hour for elderly and vulnerable shoppers in our supermarkets. Many of you have told me how much you appreciated this and that you would like this to become a regular event. Some of you also said we should extend this to members of our hardworking NHS and Social Care workers. And we will be doing just that.
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, all our supermarkets will dedicate 8am - 9am to serving elderly, disabled and vulnerable customers, as well as NHS and Social Care workers. They will just need to show us their pass or ID when they visit. Some of you fed back that you couldn’t find what you wanted during that hour, so we will try our best to have essential items on shelf for these customers. We will be working to keep our shelves well stocked and would encourage customers to arrive throughout the hour to prevent queues forming and to help everyone keep a safe distance.
March 21, 2020