Australia’s first supermarket to announce an exclusive shopping hour for the elderly and disabled described Tuesday’s first run as excellent and calm.
Altona’s IGA supermarket on Sunday became the first store to announce the move, in response to seeing more vulnerable shoppers constantly missing out on staples amid panic buying.
The Pier Street store opened at 6am on Tuesday, one hour before its usual time.
Owner Hitesh Palta said the queue lasted until 7.30am.
“Customers supported it very well,” he said. “They were patient, very calm.
“From the last two weeks we could see that there’s queuing up outside the supermarkets and the people who get missed are the elderly, so we were thinking, ‘What can we do for them?’
“So, this is the best we could do … open an hour early so that they get exclusive right to shop in our shop without the hustle and bustle.”
Woolworths followed suit, opening at 7am, and Coles will start a similar session on Wednesday.
Shopper Fay said she had taken her father-in-law to the Williamstown Woolworths first but the shelves were emptied of what he needed.
“There was no meat,” she said.
So, she came to Altona IGA after the seniors’ hour to see what the shelves looked like.
By 8am, Star Weekly observed many jumbo rolls of toilet paper on the shelves and, for the first time in a while, no mad rush.
