Gradual lifting of lockdown and Tesco results

The latest stage of the “gradual easing of lockdown” took place on Monday (12th April) and, helped by bright sunshine, non essential shops were able to reopen and pubs and restaurants open for customers seated in outdoor areas.

Town and city centres seemed crowded as footfall rose by an average of 155% on the previous week. In shopping centres the rise was 225%, in market towns 237% and on city centre High Streets the rise was 176%.

The Government had urged caution and accepted that a rise in infection levels is likely to take place because of the easing of lockdown, while some scientists expressed concern about the arrival of new variants of COVID 19, and suggested that a reversal of the lockdown easing might be needed.

A number of people expressed surprise and often concern at the numbers of people congregating in shopping areas.

To put it into perspective, footfall was still 16% down on the same day in 2019. Perhaps we had forgotten what a crowded city centre looked like before the pandemic.

A couple of miles away from the city centre I visited a supermarket. The previous week customers had to queue for fifteen minutes or more at the checkouts. For much of Monday there were hardly any queues, and for much of the day the cashiers were waiting for customers to arrive at their till.

The supermarkets have done well during the lockdown. Haven’t they?

It is generally thought that the supermarkets have done well through the pandemic, but doubt was cast over that assumption by Tesco, which announced its results for the year up to 27th February.

Like for like sales had risen by almost 8% (I would have expected the figure to be higher), but profits dropped by almost 20%. This figure doesn’t include petrol sales, which dropped by almost 40%.

It seems that Tesco, and other supermarkets, faced a number of cost increases during the pandemic including increased sick pay payments because of workers who were infected or forced to self isolate by track and trace, new staff, many on temporary contracts, cost of PPE and costly changes to the stores, especially protective shields at checkouts.

The trend towards online sales have been a factor for supermarkets as well, with online representing almost 20% of sales during the winter for Tesco. Their delivery capacity has more than doubled during the pandemic.

The gradual lifting of lockdown is set to continue, with more restrictions being lifted on May 17th and June 21st.

Pong cheese are offering 10% off their Spring Selection products when you apply code SPRING21 at checkout by 30th April. Click on the link below:

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