A technical glitch at Co-op’s Thurrock distribution centre has resulted in major availability issues for stores across the south of England that were already struggling to recover from the impact of the Beast from the East.
The Grocer has had reports this week of empty shelves in stores owned by and supplied via the Co-op in London, Portslade, Haywards Heath and as far west as Swindon.
Stores have been forced to post notices apologising to customers. One notice in the Co-op store at East Croydon station said: “We’re so sorry we’ve not got everything today. Unfortunately an IT issue at our depot has affected deliveries to your store. Please bear with us while we get back on track.”
Another customer notice in East London appeared to blame the IT problems on the recent bad weather. It said: “Due to the recent severe weather, there has been a detrimental effect on our logistics department, this may mean you do not find some of the products available at this time, we are doing our absolute best working alongside logistics to recover our availability in store.”
The Grocer understands that the IT glitch took place on Monday this week as it was getting back to normal in the wake of the impact of the snow at the beginning of the month - which impacted all retailers across the UK. The retailer said the problem had been resolved and the depot was back to full strength on Tuesday. However the availability issues in store were still in evidence on Thursday.
“We have had an IT issue at our Thurrock depot, which has affected some stores and caused some localised disruption,” confirmed a Co-op spokesman. “We are very sorry that this delayed a number of deliveries from our main depot, which is now fully operational, and we’re working hard to get products into stores as quickly as possible.”
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