UK supermarket Morrisons: Coronavirus is an 'unprecedented challenge'

British supermarket group Morrisons cautioned on Wednesday it was facing "unprecedented challenges and uncertainty" dealing with coronavirus.

The grocer said that during the last two weeks, there has been considerable stocking up and sales pull-forward as customers plan for the impact of the outbreak. For the first six weeks of its 2020-21 year, retail like-for-like sales were up 5.0% year-on-year.

"We are currently facing unprecedented challenges and uncertainty dealing with COVID-19," the company's chairman and chief executive said in a joint statement. "Looking after our colleagues and customers is our priority, ensuring that we have a clean, safe place to shop and work."

British supermarkets have struggled for over a week to keep shelves stocked in the face of intense panic buying, which worsened on Tuesday despite weekend appeals for calm from supermarket bosses and politicians. Online grocery operations have also been running at capacity. Morrisons said on Tuesday it plans to create 3,500 new jobs and expand its home delivery operation to help get through the coronavirus crisis.

The country's fourth-largest supermarket group made a 3% rise in pretax profit before one-off items of 408 million pounds in the year to Feb. 2, bang on analysts' average forecasts.