Rationing at UK supermarkets as world prices soar 70 per cent

The Mail On-Line Sunday 1st June 2008, says: Supermarkets are rationing rice in some stores after panic-buying by customers worried about a global shortage. Retailers including Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Lidl have introduced quotas for the staple food, which has increased in price worldwide by 70 per cent in a year.

It is believed to be the first time major stores have limited purchases of such foodstuffs since sugar and bread were restricted in the Seventies because of strikes by producers. Netto, the Danish-owned chain with 184 UK stores, has limited its 10kg bags of rice to one per customer. Lidl, the German-owned cut-price group with 380 British outlets, has restricted purchases to ‘family volumes’ to stop bulk-buying by traders.

Most of the limits have been introduced in areas of Leicester which have large Asian populations.
Tesco said that for two weeks its store in the Hamilton area of the city had limited customers to two packs of rice per person. But a spokeswoman insisted: ‘There is no supply problem. Rice was restricted for a couple of weeks at one store only. No other Tesco stores have been affected.’