A supermarket in Mülheim an der Ruhr – there is a large screen on the door. It either shows a green arrow, which means that there is still enough space in the market, or a red stop sign. “The number of customers is measured using infrared cameras”, explains store manager Felix Kels, “and then the screen will automatically show ‘Stop’ when the number is reached”.
According to the food trade association, the screen will be on stop more and more often as Christmas approaches. In the Corona winter, shopping in the supermarket before Christmas could become a real test of patience. There are long queues in the presumably wet and cold weather.
It’s best to go shopping in the morning
If you want to avoid this, you should do some of your shopping as soon as possible – at different times of the day than usual. Most of them go to the supermarkets in the evening, in the morning it is much emptier. “Instead of Friday or Saturday mornings, it is better to go shopping in the middle of the week“says Christian Böttcher from the food trade association,”there is particularly little going on on Tuesday mornings, for example“.
Buy durable food early
You can already buy durable food for the Christmas days now. In order to keep the time in the supermarket as short as possible, the Federal Association of the Grocery Trade recommends taking a shopping list with you. This helps to do the shopping quickly – so that the other customers in front of the door can enter the store faster and the queues are shorter.
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