At Jumbo, you’ll soon be able to shop for groceries non-stop for 72 hours
Well, we certainly felt the impact of it at the last press conference. There had been far too much shopping around Black Friday, it had been too busy everywhere, and the hospitality industry was punished yet again for the masses crowding elsewhere into the shopping aisles. In short, a complete mess with a capital C for corona, and if people’s behaviour doesn’t improve, you can celebrate Christmas all by yourself in the broom cupboard. Reason enough for supermarket chain Jumbo to think along about solutions with the coming weeks in mind—and this initiative has come out of their hat to spread out the crowds:
Because Jumbo expects people to be planning to go all out for Christmas despite (or perhaps precisely because of) the gloomy circumstances (partly because, sadly enough, restaurants will remain closed throughout December). Of course, we wholeheartedly encourage you to support your favourite restaurant by picking up your Christmas meal there, for example in the form of a home cooking kit with instructions from the chef himself. But we also understand that thousands of people feel like filling their December shopping cart to the brim with all kinds of goodies and enjoying themselves in the kitchen! And because all those people should NOT crowd into the store AT THE SAME TIME, Jumbo is extending opening hours in a number of branches by a very generous amount…
Grocery-shopping stress is real
Shopping for groceries has of course already been no easy feat lately, and in the Netherlands the 24-hour supermarket is virtually non-existent. But with the upcoming Christmas rush in sight, Jumbo is pioneering with the following stunt: the Jumbo Foodmarkt branch in Breda will be open non-stop for 72 consecutive hours—the full three days and nights before Christmas! Lucky Brabanders! They can simply drop in in the middle of the night, for example after they’ve finished Netflixing and run out of Ben&Jerry’s, and immediately pick up the roast for Christmas. Or the vegetarian frikandel roll that Snackspert loves so much.
Jumbohoho
Other Jumbo branches will also have much longer opening hours in the days before Christmas: the Foodmarkt concepts in Amsterdam and Leidschendam from seven in the morning until 11:30 p.m., and most Jumbos across the country until nine or ten in the evening. This is how Jumbo hopes to ensure that too many people aren’t doing their shopping at the same time, and they also recommend buying products with a longer shelf life as soon as possible to avoid that peak right before Christmas.
If you’re a Jumbo customer, do check how your branch is handling things, and leave the special hours for older people free for all the lovely elderly people across the country. And so it may well be that doing your Christmas shopping will be a lot less stressful for you this year!
Read also:
- Supermarket employee shares horror stories about shopping during the holidays
- 11 products supermarket employees have no idea what you’re talking about
- 11 supermarket things that are genuinely hilarious
Source and images: Jumbo
