Hoarding at Friesland supermarkets: Higher sales than Christmas

Supermarkets in Friesland did big business on Thursday ahead of a code orange snowstorm that hit the northern provinces overnight. There was hoarding on a large scale, Piet Smit, general manager of Poiesz Supermarkten, told Omrop Fryslan. “Sales were higher than at Christmas.”

Many supermarkets were left with empty shelves by day-end Thursday. “We saw carts full of toilet paper, crates full of baked beans. All sorts of crazy things,” Smit said. “But it’s really not necessary. We deliver products to the supermarkets every day.”

On Friday, deliveries are happening a bit later than usual. Typically, Poiesz trucks start deliveries at 5:00 a.m. Today, they only started at 8:00 a.m. “We chose to start later because it gets light then, and the services have had the opportunity to clear the roads a bit,” Smit told the broadcaster.

The KNMI expects up to 15 centimeters of snow to fall in Friesland, Groningen, Drenthe, and the Wadden Islands between midnight and noon on Friday. The service issued a code orange weather warning for snow and strong winds.

The rest of the country is covered in a code yellow warning for slippery conditions on icy roads, bicycle paths, and sidewalks.