Extra limits have now been placed on how much you can buy at Tesco, as supermarket bosses try to ensure that there is enough to go around. Limits have been placed on staple items including toilet roll (one pack per person), rice, eggs, hand wash and soap (maximum of three items of each per person).
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‘Food for all’
A statement on Tesco’s website explains the reasoning behind the measures:
We’re continuing to encourage customers to buy only what they need, to help make sure there’s enough for everyone. We’ve introduced buying limits to some essential products to help with this too.
Whilst there are not believed to be shortages currently, these new measures are being put in place in order to avoid the scenes of empty shelves that were seen in March as a result of people panic-buying at the start of the first lockdown. Tesco are urging their customers to ‘shop as normal’ rather than hoarding goods.
Fresh fruit and veg shortages
However, supermarket spokespeople have warned that the supply of fresh products such as lettuce, citrus fruit, cauliflower and broccoli could be affected by the closing of borders between France and the UK. Whilst essential travel between France and the UK is now set to resume, there may still be knock-on effects.
According to the director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, Andrew Opie:
If we do not see the empty trucks, which have already delivered to warehouses and stores, getting back over the Channel, they will not be able to pick up the next consignment of fresh fruit, vegetables, salad vegetables… unless those trucks can start travelling again and go back to Spain and Portugal and other parts of Europe, we will have problems with fresh produce from 27 December.
