Coles lifts all purchase limits on grocery items

Supermarket giant Coles will from Tuesday lift all restrictions on the number of grocery items which customers are allowed to buy, as pantry hoarding slows markedly.

The company announced late on Monday that anti-bacterial wipes and liquid soap are the final products to have customer limits removed, as of Tuesday morning.

Grocery items such as flour, pasta, rice, toilet paper, liquid soap and hand sanitiser all had limits placed on them during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic in Australia.

Many Australians were staggered at the frenzied buying of toilet paper in particular at supermarkets in early March, which prompted Coles and Woolworths to put customer limits in place for a variety of items.

A Coles spokeswoman said the retailer hoped that lifting restrictions on the final products would make it easier for shoppers.

"We are also grateful to our suppliers and logistics partners who helped restock our shelves, and the state and federal governments who helped us to get deliveries to stores as quickly as possible during the height of the crisis,'' she said.

A Woolworths spokesman said late on Monday that limits on hand sanitiser would be removed on Tuesday at Woolworths supermarkets, but limits would still remain of two items per customer on anti-bacterial wipes, frozen fruit and hand wash.

Coles still has a limit of four tins of infant formula per transaction on customers, but this was in place prior to the coronavirus pandemic.