Supermarkets have been on the front line throughout the Covid crisis.. Although profits have been boosted, they’ve had their fair share of challenges to cope with: managing supply in times of unpredictable demand; coping with a tsunami of online orders; dealing with new requirements for social distancing; staff shortages through illness; enforcing mask-wearing.

Supermarket workers say that when the UK first went into lockdown last March, they had never felt so appreciated. Customers would thank them for their service and applaud delivery vans in the street. “In lockdown one it felt a little embarrassing at times – people would wave, even stop and applaud as you went past as if you were a NHS worker. Now, it’s back to normal. Block a cul-de-sac for five minutes and you can expect abuse,” said Ben Harvey, to the Guardian.

He believes that the media has forgotten them: “Doctors and nurses are continually featured in the news, but there is very little mentioned about those who have worked throughout the pandemic and the toll this year has taken on them.”

Another article in the Guardian, from an anonymous stressed-out supermarket worker, reported fights breaking out between customers because one of them stood too close to the other, and other customers who “regularly lean around screens to talk with cashiers. I’ve seen someone pull down their mask to wipe their nose with their hand before passing over their store membership card. Staff call the self-checkout area “the cage”: a small, Perspex-enveloped space in which it’s impossible to socially distance, where customers rarely stay two metres apart or move away when you arrive to untag their alcohol or fix a problem with the scale.” 

Unions have called for supermarket workers and delivery drivers to be treated in the same way as healthcare professionals and be prioritised for vaccination.

“Retail staff are working with the public every day and are not only suffering increased abuse but are also deeply worried about catching Covid-19,” said Usdaw general secretary Paddy Lillis.

“That must be taken into account by the government when assessing risk levels and priority for vaccines and testing. We are calling on the government to ensure retail workers and delivery drivers are given priority, because they provide the essential service of keeping the nation fed.”

If supermarket workers do win the battle for priority vaccines, they won’t have far to go. Asda has this week become the first supermarket to deliver the Covid jab. The supermarket opened a vaccination hub at its Smethwick store in the West Midlands. The seven-day vaccine hub is open from 8am to 8pm and can deliver 240 injections per day. It caters for priority groups in an area with some of the highest coronavirus levels in the country. 

Besides providing vaccinations, supermarkets are showing their commitment to their local community in other ways. Morrisons has announced it is setting aside an additional £5m of food supplies to help food banks in the UK.

Morrisons has run its bakery, egg and fruit & veg packing site for an extra hour every day since the start of the pandemic to make, prepare and pack food required to restock food banks. More than two million eggs and over 300,000 loaves of bread were distributed through Morrisons’ own manufacturing sites.

Morrisons CEO David Potts said: “As food banks continue to face the extremely challenging times they find themselves in, it is only right that we continue to play our full part at Morrisons in feeding the nation.”

At Keep it Cool, we recognise the immense challenges that the supermarket industry is facing, and we salute its workers as unsung heroes of the pandemic.