Birmingham supermarket shelves left bare as coronavirus panic-buying continues

Birmingham’s supermarkets have been left mostly bare as customer panic buying continues due to the coronavirus threat.

In what has been unprecedented during peacetime and outside of the annual Christmas chaos, shops are not only rationing items they still have in stock, but also completely selling out of others – with dry foods and toiletries being on the top of that list.

Shoppers are buying much more than they need for fear of items being unavailable later, thus leaving shelves of “essential” items bare and making it even harder for other customers to secure the very basic items needed day to day. This is affecting vulnerable individuals more, such as the elderly.

Essential items

If you were to look at the missing items on store shelves, it would appear the general public have deemed the following as “essential items”: Long-life milk, toilet rolls, beans, tinned potatoes (tinned anything in fact), anti bacterial EVERYTHING and pasta.

Not only is a lot of this not needed in such huge quantities by the average customer but the excessive purchases may end up straining what are currently healthy wholesale and retail supply chains.

It’s no wonder some outlets have attempted to hike up prices of everyday items in a bid to cash in the chaos or to keep their margins up with the threat of diminishing stock.

Here’s the Birmingham supermarkets left with empty shelves:

#1  The toilet roll aisle at B&M…

#2  Everything but the bleach at Home Bargains…

#3  Moments before all of the toilet rolls were gone…

#4  Customer notice…

#5  Limits on anti-bacterial items at M&S…

#6  Dry foods aisle…

 #7  More empty shelves…

#8  Even more empty shelves…

#9  Look at the state of these…

 #10  The state of ASDA in Birmingham…

#11  ASDA…

#12  This was the toiletries section…

#14  Where’s all the hand wash?

#15  Nappies and wipes…

#16  Shopping for the last kitchen towels…

#17  A lonely hand sanitiser at B&M…

#18  Toilet roll aisle at Tesco…

#19  Cheap porridge oats are popular…

#20  Tesco’s cheapest beans a last resort…

#21  A message to shoppers…

The situation in Birmingham and across the country is getting worse, but you can do your bit to help those who really need assistance, and part of that is stop panic buying.

You do not need 50 tins of baked beans, 20 packs of dry pasta and a thousand loo rolls. Calm down, slow down and think before you deprive the vulnerable fo essential items in the coming weeks and possibly month.

For more information on coronavirus and the government response, click here.