Woolworths Announces New Changes To Self-Service

Woolworths has announced new measures to reduce the potential spread of the coronavirus in stores.

In an email to customers sent out on Friday afternoon, Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci announced two changes coming to stores to further enhance measures introduced to assist with social distancing and hygiene.

The first is changes to self-service checkouts, that will from next week have plexi-glass screens added between them. This comes after they were introduced at staffed checkouts.

"200 stores will have new clear screens between self-service ‘assisted’ checkouts by early next week, with others to follow soon after. These are in addition to the well-received screens at our staffed checkouts," Banducci said.

"We continue to work on additional ways to keep us all collectively safe, with more to come on those as we roll them out."

This is in addition to the 1.5 metre distancing rule that has been implemented, which has seen every second checkout in self-service closed to allow for adequate distancing.

The second change is the introduction of hand sanitiser stations located in store so that customers are able to sanitise their hands on the way in and on the way out.

"Hand sanitiser stations will be in the entrance of 95 percent of Woolworths Supermarkets by this Sunday, with the remainder coming next week," he continued.

We’d encourage you to use these to sanitise your hands before you start your shop.

Further to this, some product limits on products will be removed as more stock becomes available.

"We’ve been able to remove more product limits this week, including on canned vegetables, canned legumes, canned tomatoes, serviettes and most baby products (excluding wipes)," Banducci said.

Yet despite the large amount of stock coming in, product limits still remain on some highly sought after products, including hand sanitiser and pasta.

"Another 1.5 million units of hand sanitiser will come in this week, plus another 500,000 packs of pasta. These are big quantities but with demand still high, supply will remain patchy in parts," he added.

Supply on toilet paper also is not back to normal yet, but Woolworths said it continues to improve. The amount being sold is decreasing, however, the quantities are still astronomical.

11.5 million rolls were sold this week, when compared to 15 million last week and 20 million the week before. Breakfast foods, baking, cleaning and health and beauty products on the other hand, have seen an increase in purchases.

Featured image: Supplied

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