As the UK enters its sixth week of lockdown, evidence has emerged of a second phase of consumers stocking up on essential items that may have run low over the last month.

Data from Edge by Ascential shows that average out-of-stock levels across the major UK online grocers increased again over the week to April 21, ending the week at 16.3% compared to 14.1% two weeks earlier.

Coronavirus average out of stocks

Online out of stocks had been stabilising in the weeks since the UK entered the ‘delay phase’, as grocers and their suppliers worked overtime to increase supply and employ additional resources to feed the nation.

But unavailability levels seen over the past week indicate that consumers may now be running low on essentials bought a month ago, leading to a second wave of high demand. Average out-of-stock levels for the UK grocers before the coronavirus pandemic stood at 1.3%.

An increase in consumer demand is unsurprising following an extension of UK lockdown restrictions for three more weeks but presents a continuing challenge for the grocers and their suppliers.

Coronavirus top 20 categories

Data from Edge for April 21 shows that the highest levels of out-of-stocks were in the tinned pasta category, which has overtaken toilet tissue and kitchen towel as the most-sought-after items.

The biggest availability challenges for the grocers remain in essential categories, as consumers continue to stock up across ambient and frozen categories.

Coronavirus unavailability by grocer

For the most recent week to April 26, Morrisons saw the highest rate of products unavailable, ending the week with 28.7% of items out of stock. At Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Tesco stock levels were more consistent over the course of the week. These retailers ended the week with out-of-stock levels at 23%, 23.8% and 14.2% respectively.

Asda and Ocado saw small rises in out of stocks of 0.5% and 1.4% over the last week. Both had increased unavailability in the dry pasta category.

Morrisons saw the greatest rise in unavailable products of 2.1%. In previous weeks we had seen a pattern of unavailable products falling over the weekend, however, this did not occur this week. It saw increases across many categories including toilet paper (10.5%), dry pasta (9.4%), cleaning (5.7%) and frozen meat and poultry (13.8%).

As Britain remains in lockdown for the next few weeks, we can expect these trends to remain as customers, retailers and suppliers adapt to the new normal.