Waitrose has been forced to increase its Christmas delivery slots after seeing huge demand from shoppers as fears grow over food and fuel shortages.
Organised customers were first in the queue for Christmas deliveries when the supermarket chain recently opened its festive online slots.
Concerns over food and fuel shortages led to demand doubling, causing such a surge that the website crashed.
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Waitrose is the first supermarket chain to open online shopping slots for the days leading up to Christmas.
And now the upmarket grocer has been forced to increase its Christmas delivery slots to keep up with shoppers anxious to arrange their Christmas dinner in good time.
A spokesman said that Waitrose was making more slots than usual available this year to cope with demand and releasing slots slowly.
Rival chain Sainsbury's is also doing its bit to ensure families can have a happy Christmas by launching its biggest ever Christmas recruitment drive.
The grocery giant opened 22,000 vacancies on fixed-term contracts of between three and 12 weeks, in anticipation of a surge in shoppers hoping to make up for last year's cancelled Christmas.
