Asda has reportedly been forced to order dozens of new baskets after customers started taking them home as the chain phases out plastic bags.
The BBC reports that baskets started to go missing at the Cambridge store after the supermarket announced plans to stop supplying 5p bags by the end of the year.
The store only has 30 to 40 left for its customers, the corporation said, and 100 new plastic green baskets are due to arrive at the store at the Beehive Centre next week.
An Asda spokesman told HuffPost UK on Friday that the firm asked “that the small number of customers who are taking our baskets home with them use their bags for life instead”.
Asda announced in February that it was starting to phase out plastic bags and stocks are no longer being replenished. Larger, “bags for life”, are still available for 9p.
It is understood that Asda is only experiencing a basket shortage at the Cambridge sore.
Asda’s competition, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Morrisons are all either phasing out single-use plastic bags, or are in the process of doing so, as is Iceland. Tesco and Morrisons have said they are unaware of any basket shortages at their stores.
Asda said in a statement: “After listening to our customers and their concerns about plastic, we made the decision to phase out our single-use plastic bags, in all of our stores, by the end of the year.
“We’re trying to do our bit to protect the environment, and would ask that the small number of customers who are taking our baskets home with them use their bags for life instead.”