The Sainsbury's store in Cheddar is reserving an hour of shopping tomorrow (March 19) exclusively for elderly and vulnerable customers.

In a statement issued this morning, the supermarket chain said that at every Sainsbury's store in the country will be reserving its first hour of opening on March 19 for the elderly and vulnerable only.

In Cheddar, this will be from 8am to 9am.

Mike Coupe, Sainsbury's chief executive officer, said: "I hope that people can respect this decision and will work with us as we try our best to help those that need it the most.

"We will also help elderly and vulnerable customers access food online. From Monday March 23, our online customers who are over 70 years of age or have a disability will have priority access to online delivery slots. We will contact these customers in the coming days with more details.

"As we work to feed the nation, we are also focusing all of our efforts on getting as much food and other essential items from our suppliers, into our warehouses and on to shelves as we possibly can.

"We still have enough food for everyone - if we all just buy what we need for us and our families.

"To help us get more essential items on to the shelves, from tomorrow we will be closing our cafes and our meat, fish and pizza counters in supermarkets.

"This means we can free up warehouse and lorry capacity for products that customers really need.

"It will also free up time for our store colleagues to focus on keeping the shelves as well stocked as possible.

"Following feedback from our customers and from our store colleagues, we have decided to put restrictions on a larger number of products.

"From today, customers will be able to buy a maximum of three of any grocery product and a maximum of two of the most popular products including toilet paper, soap and UHT milk."