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We visited supermarkets in Japan, France, Poland, and the Netherlands to see what items people are 'panic buying' around the world as coronavirus fears growhttps://www.businessinsider.in/slideshows/miscellaneous/we-visited-supermarkets-in-japan-france-poland-and-the-netherlands-to-see-what-items-people-are-panic-buying-around-the-world-as-coronavirus-fears-grow/slidelist/74499980.cms2020-03-05T22:45:34+05:30

We visited supermarkets in Japan, France, Poland, and the Netherlands to see what items people are 'panic buying' around the world as coronavirus fears grow

Mar 5, 2020, 22:45 IST

In France, people are buying pasta and canned fish. Sales of both items were twice as high as usual on Saturday, according to Nielsen data, and the pasta aisle of an Auchan supermarket in the Paris suburbs was sparse on Tuesday night.

The cleaning supplies section looked a little bare, too.

There were lots of boxes around the store on Tuesday night. A salesperson on the floor told Business Insider that the shelves had been refilled that morning.

The Intermarché store next door had some boxes missing from the pasta shelves, but plenty were left for customers to buy.

A sign posted in a Leclerc supermarket on Sunday said, "Maybe you should stock up on rice and pasta?"

In Warsaw, Poland, the app for a popular drug store showed that antibacterial hand gel was running low or unavailable. Visiting a store location confirmed that sanitizer was out of stock.

On the other side of Warsaw, another store was sold out of antibacterial gel.

In the Netherlands, people are buying hand soap and sanitizer gel en masse, and retailers are restricting the amount you can buy online. Kruidvat in Amsterdam was one store where shelves were empty on a recent visit.

A Japanese supermarket in Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture, which is south of Tokyo, sold out of toilet paper on Sunday, Business Insider found on a visit.

A sign at the supermarket read, "One item per person."

A trip to a supermarket in neighboring Fujisawa turned up an empty hand soap aisle.

Just a few lonely packs of toilet paper remained in the Fujisawa grocery store on Sunday.

One Tokyo location of the supermarket chain AEON seemingly poked fun at the shortages. A photo circulating on Twitter among Japanese users shows a healthy supply of toilet paper at the store and a sign reading: "Only 10 each person."

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