The three big supermarkets in Banff and Buchan have all pledged support for colleagues and customers to deal with the coronavirus crisis.
Details are below.
Asda:
For our customers:
· Our larger stores will be prioritising elderly and vulnerable customers, and their carers, from opening until 9am. We are asking other customers to leave their shopping until later in the day, allowing those who need essentials to be able to get them first thing
· Customers are now able to buy only up to three of any product across all food items, toiletries and cleaning products, to help everyone get what they need
· We are temporarily closing non-essential services, such as rotisserie and pizza counters, allowing us to free up space and time for colleagues
· We are temporarily limiting the opening hours of some stores to ensure they have time to restock and thoroughly clean
· We’re asking online customers to advise us when ordering if they are self-isolating so we can make adjustments to their delivery
For our colleagues:
· They will receive full pay if they need to isolate due to coronavirus
· Where colleagues have been identified as being part of a vulnerable group and need to self-isolate, they will receive full pay for the full 12 weeks to protect their health
For those out of work:
· We are working with more than 20 companies to take on workers whose normal jobs have been impacted by Covid-19 – including Moto motorway services and Menzies, who operate airport baggage handling. Colleagues from these companies will be offered shifts or a temporary secondments to Asda roles, ensuring individuals remain in work and companies do not have the additional pressure of staff costs during this crisis
· We’re also offering quick-start, temporary contracts in our stores and distribution centres for people looking for work
For our suppliers:
· We are paying our small suppliers immediately to help them keep their business operating
· We’re providing a three month rent holiday to around 250 small business tenants in our stores who are struggling to operate during these unprecedented times
· We are offering local cafes and restaurants the opportunity to take on additional catering services and help feed colleagues who are working around the clock to keep shelves stocked
Colleagues:
- Our store and depot colleagues will receive a thank you payment in recognition of their incredible efforts, which will be the equivalent of one-week’s pay.
- Any colleague self-isolating for 7 or 14 days (who will also continue to be paid) will also receive the thank you payment, as we know they are only taking this step to protect our customers and their fellow colleagues.
- We are introducing a shopping hour for all our colleagues on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 7am- 8am.
Dedicated shopping hour:
- We are introducing a dedicated shopping hour on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 8am – 9am where NHS workers, vulnerable customers and the elderly will be given priority over other customers. We’d welcome your support in encouraging customers not in these groups to wait until after 9am to do their shopping.
Food banks:
- We will be donating £5m to our charity partners FareShare and the Trussell Trust, which will provide more than 4 million meals to families in food poverty, as well as giving more than 3000 charities access to free food over the next 3 months.
- We are working on our solution for how to redeem school meal vouchers in our stores.
Customers:
- We continue to enforce our three-item limit across all food products, toiletries and cleaning products, to help everyone get what they need. Our store managers have the flexibility to waive this for local good causes who might need extra supplies.
- We continue to limit our non-essential services and opening hours to help free up our colleagues and thoroughly clean our stores.
Tesco:
At Tesco, we have been doing everything we can to keep business as usual, but we now have to accept it is not business as usual. In the last two weeks, we have seen significant and prolonged increases in demand across all of our stores and this is leading to shortages in some products for some customers.
"Reacting to the latest government announcements, we have to plan on this situation being the new normal and we will do all that we can to make the food you want available, but we need your help.
"In order to protect the core shopping essentials, we are going to implement some changes in our stores. The changes are designed to simplify what we do so that we can provide more of what people need in a clean and safe environment. We ask for your understanding and your support.
"From Thursday 19th March we will start to implement the following changes:
• To ensure more people have access to everyday essentials, we are introducing a storewide restriction of only 3 items per customer on every product line, and removing multi-buy promotions.
• In order to allow Tesco colleagues to focus on stocking shelves, helping to provide the essential groceries you are looking for and to avoid waste, we will close all meat, fish, deli counters and salad bars.
• To be able to ensure our stores are clean, that we can replenish stock, and allow our colleagues to rest, we will change our trading hours with all stores closing at 10pm.
• To ensure we are doing everything possible to reduce the risk of infection for both our customers and colleagues, we will be introducing some distancing measures at the checkout and, to make it swifter, invite customers who can, to pay by card.
• To help free up slots for the more vulnerable, such as our elderly customers and those who are self-isolating, we are encouraging customers who shop online or choose Click+Collect for their grocery home shopping, to prioritise shopping in-store where possible.
• To ensure our more vulnerable and elderly customers can shop in-store, we will prioritise one hour every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning between 9-10am (except in our Express stores) and ask that you respect this.
• Tesco store colleagues can't work from home and a good number of them will need to respond to personal or family challenges connected with dealing with COVID-19. So we would please ask that you understand the challenging environment in which we are all working. If you do go in-store and want to say thank you, then I'm sure they'd appreciate it.
"So, if you could help us by limiting demand of essential items and allowing us to focus on the core needs of our customers – we are confident that we can continue to feed the nation. We are delivering food daily to our stores, but this is a very challenging time and we will only get through this if we work together. Thank you for your support."
Morrisons:
The safety and well-being of our customers and colleagues is always our number one priority - and never more so than now, during the Coronavirus outbreak.
Responding to the latest guidance and advice from the World Health Organisation and the Government, we're making some practical changes to our delivery service from 13th March in order to protect the wellbeing of our customers and our colleagues.
Website and App Technical Issues
Due to the current high demand we are facing, we have unfortunately made the decision to turn off the app temporarily. This will then give us the time to focus on making sure the morrisons.com website can handle demand and work efficiently for all of our customers. Please go to morrisons.com to place or edit an order.
We hope to resume the app service as soon as possible.
We are working hard to fix any online issues as they occur. We would recommend if you are experiencing problems that you try again later.
Editing Your Order
Please ensure any edits to your order are made no later than 48 hours before your delivery time. Due to unprecedented demand, further edits after this point will cause disruptions to our fulfilment service and could cause your order to be cancelled altogether.
Delivery Drivers & Social Distancing
Our delivery drivers are not permitted to enter houses or hand over shopping bags on your doorstep. Please mention as part of your Delivery Instructions if you are self-isolating so that our drivers can organise with you how to best deliver your order.
Bag Returns
We are currently not accepting returned bags. Please keep them and we will collect them all once we are able to do so.
Doorstop Rejections & Substituted Items
We are currently not accepting returned or rejected items at your doorstep. Please refer to our Help Hub to find out what to do.
Difficulty Adding New Payment Type
If you are experiencing issues with adding new payment cards at checkout, we would recommend that you remove all expired payment types (inc Paypal), and then try again.
Delivery Slot Availability
There is a high demand for delivery slots so, we would recommend booking as far in advance as possible. The website shows all delivery slots available - unfortunately, there are no further options or slots other than those shown.
Maximum Capacity
To ensure more customers have access to everyday essentials we are introducing a restriction of only 3 items per customer on every product line online. Where products are on a multi buy, e.g. 10 for £3, you can still enjoy the offer if you buy a combination of 10 products in the same offer but you will be limited to 3 of any variety in that offer.
Out of Stock Products
We're increasing production where possible so that we can service the high levels of customer demand we are currently seeing. Please be patient and continue to check the website for our latest range.
To our 96,637 colleagues
Thank you for all you are doing, working so very hard as a team in our stores and sites, doing our bit to help feed the nation.
As Britain's biggest single food maker, colleagues in our own bakeries, meat, fish and other food manufacturing facilities are working around the clock to make and provide food for our shelves.
To our millions of customers
Thank you for your patience and consideration whilst shopping with us in these uncertain times.
Our colleagues - and fellow customers - are facing the same pressures as you, and really appreciate your understanding and respect in these testing times.
To our thousands of suppliers
Thank you for working so very hard to respond to the increased demand for your products.
To our vital smaller suppliers - the backbone of the British food supply chain - we hope that by providing immediate payment terms to you, this will help us get through this together.
We promise to play our part in feeding the nation - it's more than our job.
Morrisons New jobs
As a British family business, Morrisons will play its part in supporting the nation during the coronavirus outbreak. Businesses across the UK will be affected, but as we expand our home delivery and logistics operations, Morrisons has thousands of new jobs available
Details are available on the Morrisons jobs website
Thank you for your ongoing support as we work through these challenges.
Your Morrisons Team