Sainsbury’s announces coronavirus safety screens milestone

Sainsbury’s has deployed its 40,000th in-store safety screen as part of its bid to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

“These screens have been installed in less than two months - a phenomenal achievement,” Sainsbury’s said in a LinkedIn post.

“It’s a fantastic milestone in our efforts to ensure our checkouts, service desks and kiosks have the protection we need to keep social distancing and help everyone in our stores to be as safe as possible. Thank you to everybody who contributed to this project!”

Last month, Sainsbury’s kicked things off by introducing the safety screens between manned checkouts in 150 of its busiest stores. It said that it was the first UK retailer to reopen such a large number of manned checkouts in its supermarkets.

The aim was to create a clear barrier between queues. This enables the grocery giant to reopen the vast majority of belted checkouts and means customers can pay for their shopping faster while still ensuring social distancing guidelines are met. Sainsbury’s also expects queues outside stores to be smaller.

Graham Biggart, Sainsbury’s Director of Commercial Operations, commented: “Customer and colleague safety is our highest priority and we want to support our customers to pay for their shopping as quickly as possible by reducing queues.”

“These protective screens will make it easier to shop in store, so thank you to our colleagues and partners who have worked so hard to get them up and running.”

Sainsbury’s trialled the new screens in its Whitechapel store for just over a week. It then reviewed whether more locations would benefit from them and also commenced a trial of safety screens at self-service checkouts.