‘We expect full recovery to take some time’: Woolworths rushes to restock shelves by Christmas
Woolworths is racing to restock shelves in the final two weeks of the year, increasing staffing, delivery volumes, and operating hours, and ensuring suppliers the supermarket is prioritising “key foodlines for Christmas”.
The supermarket is scrambling after a 17-day strike at its distribution hubs saw grocery deliveries halted, and sales impacted by approximately $140 million, close to triple the $50 million in losses the supermarket estimated in a December 3 stock market update.
In a letter sent to suppliers last week, Woolworths chief commercial officer, Paul Harker, said the restocking efforts had been accelerated, but will take time.
“While we know the road to recovery will take some time, our immediate focus is on delivering a great experience for our customers this Christmas.
“As part of our recovery efforts, we have identified a number of work streams that will help us deliver Christmas and restore the confidence of customers in VIC, ACT and the Riverina district in NSW.
“These work streams will continue through to January and the Back-to-School trading period.
“Each day we are seeing improved on-shelf-availability. However, given the significant impacts of the industrial action we expect full recovery to take some time and at the moment our priority is on key food lines for Christmas.”
Harker has since updated The Australian on its progress, telling the publication, “supermarkets that were impacted by the industrial action have great availability of all your essential products, with availability close to 100%, meaning our customers can easily complete a full grocery shop”.
Harker said “stock levels also remain high in all our stores nationwide”, adding: “Across the country, we have everything in store and online that customers need this Christmas, with an ample supply of fresh fruit and veg, meat, seafood, award-winning Christmas hams, fruit mince pies and bonbons.
“Since the affected sites reopened just over a week ago, they have processed an incredible 7.5 million cartons of groceries, and more than 3,500 truck deliveries have been made to make sure shelves are fully stocked for Christmas.”
The 17-day strike ended on December 8, after the supermarkets and workers agreed to individual enterprise agreement offers that guarantee team members a wage increase of approximately 11% over three years, along with the relaxation of strict performance metrics that had workers complaining they were being treated like robots.
Woolworths warned shareholders last week, the strikes will have an estimated $50-60 million hit on the companies earnings, “reflecting the impact of lost sales, additional transport and supply chain contingency costs and elevated levels of stock loss”.
The group will provide a comprehensive update at its half-year results presentation in February, but warn “the full extent of the one-off financial impact is unknown at this stage”.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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