Bottled water running off shelves after alert

• LATEST: Lower Murray Water removes emergency use restrictions

MANY Sunraysia supermarkets completely sold out of water on Monday and Tuesday, with residents not taking any chances when it comes to their quality of drinking water.

Shops were quick to place large orders and replace their depleted stock while ordering extra, anticipating the rush was likely to continue through the week.

Store owners and managers said the water began flying off the shelves on the back of an alert issued by Lower Murray Water late Sunday, which advised Red Cliffs residents to boil water before drinking it as part of emergency use restrictions.

While the alert was removed on Monday, it did not slow down residents in stocking up.

Red Cliffs FoodWorks owner Shirley Stephens said after selling out of water on Monday, she put through an overnight rush order for 200 boxes in time for opening Tuesday, and sold almost half of them on Tuesday morning alone.

“First thing Monday morning the rush started and we’ve had that many phone calls since, asking if we’ve had more water come in,” Ms Stephens said.

“We went through at least 50 (10L) boxes on Monday plus all the 6-pack and 24-pack slabs we had, that’s all gone.”

She said an order of 300 boxes of water were due to arrive in-store on Friday and assured customers, no matter how big the demand, the price would not be put up.

At Mildura’s Coles store in Lime Avenue, shelves usually stacked high with water, were also bare by Monday evening as many customers bought multiple containers.

“We put steps in place to bring some larger volumes into our store, we have 10 palettes (600 of the Coles brand 24-packs) due to come in (Tuesday), we’re staggering our loads, we can’t receive them all in one go…we’re obviously trying to do the best we can for everyone,” store support manager Mick Kelly said.

“From Monday afternoon we started to see a spike in our water sales and it appeared to be in conjunction with the announcements put out by Lower Murray Water.”

He said while water sales did typically spike around Christmas and when the weather heated up, this week’s sales were above usual.

“At this time of year we would usually have a couple of palettes coming in each day, but we’ve gone for an extra eight (800 units of water) and depending what we sell, that may be backed up in the next 24 hours.

“We just keep track of what we’re selling and if there’s a need for more the head office is good in making sure we get supply in a short turnaround.”