Crowds flocked to southern supermarkets yesterday as the South returned to Covid-19 Alert Level 2 — but shoppers spoken to by the Otago Daily Times said they were just out for their "normal shop".
Staff at New World at Remarkables Park Town Centre and Countdown in Frankton said there was no "mass panic buying".
But there and at Pak’nSave in Frankton, gaps had started to appear where toilet rolls, flour and pasta are kept.
Once-familiar queues reappeared at Dunedin Central Countdown in the afternoon.
Countdown health and safety general manager Kiri Hannifin said the firm would limit the number of people able to enter stores to help maintain 2m social distancing nationwide, rather than just in Auckland.
As she did at the time of the move to Alert Level 4 in March, she said supplies would not run out and that there was no need to stockpile — people should continue shopping as normal.
"The health, safety and well-being of our team and customers continues to be our utmost priority at all times.
Countdown staff had "worked incredibly hard overnight to ensure our stores were safe and ready to shop this morning", she said.
There would be limits on some items and opening hours would be reduced, from 8am to 9pm
Early yesterday, the car park was full at Pak’nSave Dunedin.
The ODT spoke to five shoppers with full trolleys who said they were just doing a normal shop.
One said the store was busier than they expected it to be.
Another said they were limited to four bottles of milk.
A reporter in Alexandra said it did not appear people were panic buying.
There was no sign of panic buying in Balclutha yesterday morning, although the New World appeared busier than usual, a reporter said.
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Comments
I know people who suffer from serious anxiety issues, and yet they've not thought about stockpiling ANYTHING in the absolute slightest, because they know that the supermarkets will STILL. BE. OPEN.
I can't say what i really feel about those of you who stockpile things in times like this, because the ODT wouldn't approve this comment with all the 'nice' words.
But seriously people, how short are your memories? We've already been through worse than this - we were at Level 4 for WEEKS, yet the supermarkets were still open and selling products...
The ONLY reason that certain products (toilet paper, sanitisers, bread etc) were out of stock a lot is because YOU were buying way more of it than normal, which resulted in others doing the same because they could see there wasn't much of that product left and thus panicked.
YOU are the cause of things being out of stock.
YOU are causing people to panic buy.
If you bought items as you normally would, then there would be NO supply issues.
It seriously is that simple!!
STOP. STOCKING. UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (unless you're on a farm/have some other sort of NORMAL shopping routine where you do buy a number of products in bulk)