Supermarket Shoppers Panic Buying For Winter Essentials

Wed, 06 Jan 2010
 
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Britain’s major supermarket chains have reported that shoppers across the UK are panic-buying due to concerns over the hazardous wintry weather.

Asda said it had seen large increases in sales of wellington boots, take-away food and puddings as well as anti-freeze products, fire logs and thermal underwear, since the start of the week.

A spokeswoman for the retailer said purchases of 25kg bags of grit had risen by 32 per cent, cat litter, which can be used as an alternative to salt for clearing snow, by 55 per cent and George thermal underwear by a massive 1,000 per cent.

She added that sales of vacuum flasks were up by 129 per cent and fire logs by 71 per cent.

Sainsbury's said customers were stocking up on tinned foods and winter essentials, with sales of flask and travel mugs up by more than 160 per cent on the same period last year.

David Bailey, Sainsbury's weather analyst, said: "We know shoppers' buying habits change according to the weather - a temperature change of three degrees from the seasonal average can result in sales of some products going up by as much as 50 per cent."

A spokesman for Tesco said the supermarket chain had seen a huge surge in the number of people buying soup, among other things.

He said: "The last snowfall caught many people out and made shopping trips quite hazardous, especially in more open areas, so it appears that this time round shoppers are being more canny and are stocking up just in case."

Morrisons reported sales of 1.5kg bags of cooking salt and 1kg bags of table salt had increased up by almost 400 per cent and 340 per cent respectively over the last few days.

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