Woolworths has reinstated a purchase limit of two items on toilet paper, hand sanitiser, paper towel, flour, sugar, pasta, mince, UHT milk, eggs and rice across its Victorian stores this afternoon.
The preventative move is in response to significantly elevated demand seen over the past 24 hours in certain parts of Melbourne. It will support social distancing in stores and ensure more customers have access to the products they need.
Woolworths Supermarkets Managing Director Claire Peters said: “We understand many Victorians are anxious about the recent community outbreak, but they can be assured our stores will remain open with plenty of stock in our warehouses to replenish our shelves.
“While we have healthy stock levels to draw on, we’re taking this precautionary step to help prevent excessive buying and support appropriate social distancing in our Victorian stores.
“We have more than enough product for all of our customers if we all just buy what we need in our weekly shop.
“We’ll closely monitor demand across Victoria in the coming days and look to wind back the limits as soon as we can.”
The re-introduction of limits on select categories will only apply in Victoria because that’s where the early signs of a demand surge is occurring. They will also apply to online orders. There are no product limits in place outside of Victoria at this time.
Woolworths has a number of social distancing and safety measures in place across Victoria, with store greeters regularly wiping down trolleys, front of store hosts monitoring social distancing around checkouts, security guards and hand sanitiser stations in each store. The safety of customers and Woolworths team members remains the key priority.
