Coronavirus: Tesco and Waitrose implement rationing due to panic-buying and stockpiling

Customers limited to buying no more than five of certain items

Supermarkets have begun rationing essential food and household items to stop customers stockpiling in preparation for the looming coronavirus epidemic.

Amid reports of empty shelves in stores across the UK as shoppers panic-bought items like toilet roll and hand sanitiser, Tesco, Waitrose and Boots have restricted on certain products to allow their stocks to replenish.

Tesco customers, both online and in-store, are now limited to buying no more than five of certain items – such as pasta, UHT milk, water, hand sanitiser, some tinned vegetables and certain children’s medication.

Waitrose is also set to “temporarily cap” certain items online, such as hand sanitiser, although it has not yet announced restrictions in-store. Boots has also limited its sales on hand sanitisers to two per person.

The restrictions come as the UK recorded its highest daily rise in new cases on Sunday, with 273 people now confirmed to have contracted the virus.

Supermarkets’ supply chains have been tested by the huge surge in demand for essential, long-lasting items as the UK gets to grips with the possibility of a large-scale outbreak.

While preparations for a no-deal Brexit are said to have softened the blow for some supermarkets, it is not just retailers feeling the pinch.

Hospitals have reported members of the public forcibly stealing wall-mounted hand sanitisers, or taking them from “the end of our patients’ beds and from our welcome desks”.

Despite the government’s competition watchdog cautioning anyone caught inflating prices in response to the skyrocketing demand could be fined, sanitisers and hand soaps are selling on eBay for as much as 50 times their recommended retail price.

Numerous people have gone so far as to bid for second-hand soaps in recent days, with a bottle of Lacura sanitiser only 75 per cent full receiving 13 offers, reaching as high as £4.20 plus postage.

But experts sought to reassure the public that supermarkets’ stocks would soon revert to normal.

“Whilst there might be empty shelves at the moment in the shops, over the next week or so, we will see them replenish,” Cardiff Business School’s chair of logistics and transport, Dr Andrew Potter, told the BBC.

“The supply chain will start to deliver stuff through to the stores and hopefully this shortage – which is fairly short-term – will clear and everything will be back to normal again.”