Stockpiling of essential goods at home appears to be on the rise as a result of the ongoing lockdown, curfew measures and daily reports of rising Covid-19 infections and death tolls.
Operators of supermarkets, hypermarkets and cash & carry stores report shoppers buying large volumes of daily goods such as packed rice, cooking oil, instant noodles, fish sauce, tissue paper and drinking water since last month, leading to shortages on the shelves.
“We’ve witnessed long queues of shoppers from morning to evening at our store over the past few weeks. This phenomenon occurred at the same time as a flood of purchase orders via an online channel,” said a female employee at a Makro cash & carry store in the Charan Sanitwong area. She said in-demand items included cooking oil, seasoning products, meat and frozen foods, and other household items such as detergent and cleaning products.
Pun Paniangvait, manager of the President office of SET-listed Thai President Foods (TFMAMA), the maker of Mama instant noodles, said retailers ordered high volumes of Mama instant noodles during July and August.
Read more at Bangkok Post