Sainsbury's store bosses are implementing new rules for people who go in-store to do their shopping, in a bid to further reduce the risk of coronavirus spreading and heighten physical distancing in their supermarkets.
From today (April 3) the store are enforcing a 'one-adult-per-household' rule, and say shop staff will ask people who come in couples or groups to wait outside the store at a safe distance, while one of them goes in to do the shopping.
The rule do not apply to children - store bosses said Sainsbury's appreciate that single parents often cannot easily leave their children at home.
The store said the measure will help enforce social distancing policies, and should also speed up queueing systems both outside and inside the store.
A spokesperson for Sainsbury's told shoppers: "Keeping you and our colleagues safe is our number one priority. This week we have brought in further measures to help you keep a safe distance from other customers and from our colleagues when you are visiting our stores.
"We have queuing systems in place outside stores and ask you to please queue at a safe distance of two metres apart. Please also try to keep a safe distance from other customers and from our colleagues when you are doing your shop.
"We have placed clear markings on shop floors to help you know what a safe distance is," he added.
And on the new one-adult-per-household rule, the spokesperson said the rule would be enforced outside the shops.
"From today, we are asking everyone to please only send one adult per household to our shops. This helps us keep people a safe distance apart and also helps to reduce queues to get into stores.
"Our store teams will be asking groups with more than one adult to choose one adult to shop and will ask other adults to wait. Children are of course welcome if they are not able to stay at home," he explained.
"We have queuing systems in place outside stores and ask you to please queue at a safe distance of two metres apart. Please also try to keep a safe distance from other customers and from our colleagues when you are doing your shop. We have placed clear markings on shop floors to help you know what a safe distance is," he added.
Stock availability
Sainsbury's said they were beating the issue of empty shelves, and panic buying appeared to be over.
"Most people are now just buying what they need for themselves and their families. This means we now often have stock on the shelves all day and at the end of the day.
"People have been queuing to get into our stores when they open in the mornings, but customers are now finding they can shop at any time of the day and feel confident in finding most of what they need.
"As stock continues to build, we have been reviewing whether we still need to limit the number of items people buy. I am pleased to tell you that we will start to remove limits from Sunday. Limits will remain in place on the most popular items which include UHT milk, pasta and tinned tomatoes.
Supporting elderly and vulnerable customers
After Tesco said it had added almost 200,000 extra online delivery slots, and was planning on increasing that by another 100,000, Sainsbury's revealed it had almost doubled the capacity of its online delivery service.
A fortnight ago, before lockdown, the store had 370,000 online delivery slots, and the store said by the end of next week that will have increased to 600,000 across home delivery and click-and-collect.
"Our customer Careline has helped 170,000 customers, who will now get priority access to online delivery.
"In total, we have offered priority booking to more than 450,000 elderly or vulnerable customers. I apologise to customers who have been struggling to get through to our online team. The team is working at full capacity and we are doing our very best to get to people as quickly as possible.
