Shoppers stockpile unboxed baby formula straight from Woolworths storeroom
Australia’s ongoing baby formula crisis is showing no sign of relenting, with dozens of Chinese buyers filmed queuing up outside a Woolworths stockroom to get their hands on boxes before they hit the shelves.
The frenzy unfolded minutes after the doors to the Box Hill supermarket, in Melbourne’s east, with video showing shoppers queued down the length of an entire aisle.
Customers tried to shield their faces as they were confronted by one man exposing the controversial tactic, known as “daigou” – personal shoppers who resell highly coveted brands to customers in China at inflated prices.
“Look at all these people… this should be illegal,” he says as shoppers run towards the checkout.
Popular baby formula tins such as A2, Bellamy’s and Aptamil are worth about $25-$35 each are purchased and sold onto China for profits of up to $100 per tin.
A Woolworths spokesperson told Yahoo7 News that the footage was filmed during the two-month period when the supermarket increased their customer purchase limit from two tins to eight, after claiming to have improved the supply of formula.
Late last month Woolworths backflipped on that policy, saying the limit would revert back to two tins per transaction.
The backflip was announced after a video shared on Reddit on the weekend showed numerous customers queuing with boxes of baby formula at a Woolworths in Melbourne.
“There was a line from one end of the supermarket to the other full of people carrying boxes of baby formula,” the Reddit user wrote.
Fed up parents, one of whom recently drove until past midnight searching for the right product, have long-condemned the actions saying the resale racquet has denied their children the right formula.
Coles also had an eight-tin limit for a short amount of time, but it revised that number several weeks ago.
A Coles spokesperson said: “Coles is committed to ensuring our customers have access to infant formula and as a result we are limiting sales quantities to two units per customer.
