Lewis is one of them, frequently popping in from his nearby flat.

It has been hugely humbling,” he adds. That’s why we need to make shopping environments as safe as possible.”, Available for everyone, funded by readers. The most visible change is in stores, with oneway systems, physically distanced queues and protective kit for staff. But by the end of that month the supermarket had spied big potential problems looming, and had a crisis response group in place which was holding daily meetings. Morrisons reinstated a limit of three on products such as toilet roll, disinfectants and bleach. Lewis says shortages have now disappeared in all but a handful of categories, such as flour, but the way people shop has altered dramatically. The other members of the big four chains, Sainsbury's and Asda, are yet to impose any restrictions. Yahoo is part of Verizon Media.

Lewis says shortages have now disappeared in all but a handful of categories, such as flour, but the way people shop has altered dramatically. Find out more about how we use your information in our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

Tesco said its restrictions applied to all store and online sales, though digital orders would also see limits on a number of additional items such as rice and canned vegetables. Last modified on Wed 1 Jul 2020 17.32 BST.

Allinson Very Strong Wholemeal Bread Flour 1.5Kg.

As it turns out, it wasn’t extreme at all, and now looks extraordinarily prescient. Tesco has nearly doubled capacity for delivery and click and collect slots in just six weeks as demand has soared, especially from vulnerable and sick shoppers.

Some teams have been using Zoom calls to gather hundreds of staff together for about two years.

Write a review Rest of Bread Flour shelf. The 1.5m target will partly be achieved by extending click & collect, with 15 more sites due to open this week. “Even if capacity triples across the whole industry, which is something very difficult to do in a short time, there will still be 80% of the market that needs to visit a store.

“We’ve seen difficult things, but also humanity and acts of kindness I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

It is understood the decision was a reaction to evidence of a small uplift in demand for the goods. Lewis says it has been a privilege to work with teams who have shown great spirit in tough conditions in stores and adapted rapidly to change.

Breadmaking has seen a massive surge in popularity since the coronavirus outbreak confined millions of shoppers to their homes.

Lewis says the industry has now bounced back from the shock when panic buying set in and shoppers loaded the equivalent of the peak-Christmas trading day into their baskets for five days on the trot. The retailer has reached its target of offering 1.2m slots a week, and Lewis says it is now aiming to offer 1.5m within the foreseeable future.

"To ensure that everyone can keep buying what they need, we have introduced bulk-buy limits on a small number of products.".

The company hired 12,000 new pickers and 4,000 extra drivers. "We just don't want to see a return to unnecessary panic buying because that creates a tension in the supply chain that's not necessary.

Mr Lewis told Ian King Live: "I think the UK saw how well the food industry managed last time, so there's very good supplies of food. Coronavirus: Tesco starts rationing key items to prevent repeat of shortages The UK's largest supermarket chain moves to avoid panic buying of flour…

All the major supermarkets introduced temporary rationing in March after shelves were stripped bare of essentials in the weeks leading up to the COVID-19 lockdown. Information about your device and internet connection, including your IP address, Browsing and search activity while using Verizon Media websites and apps. As the UK government dithered on implementing a national lockdown, Tesco’s chief executive signed off the retailer’s plan to help feed the nation in mid-February. Tesco in Stevenage, UK. The big … Tesco is currently not selling any bread flour, but you can nab a 1.5kg pack of white flour for £1. It comes a day after 'big four' rival Morrisons introduced similar measures, blaming evidence of stockpiling. We know when that is and have all year to plan for it,’ says Lewis. “Transactions last week were down by 48% but our basket size more than doubled. Lewis says they are breaking records, but still not meeting demand: “Last week we picked over 10m items [for online orders] in one day for the first time. “We don’t know ,” says Lewis, but picking from stores means they can “flex up and down” and “follow demand”, says Lewis.

Flour - a key baking ingredient - has been flying off the shelves as more and more of us are getting into the home-baking trend. To meet that demand the first big change was to switch the opening hours of the 350 stores where it picks home shopping orders, from 24-hour trading to daytime opening hours, so that more orders could be picked overnight.

The retailer took on 47,000 additional staff within days to help cope with demand although at least 7,000 of those have already been stood down, partly as regular staff have returned.