WOOLWORTHS Bendigo Marketplace will reduce its trading hours and stop offering its community hour as it becomes a priority delivery hub.
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The store will become part of the supermarket giant's strategy to provide more home deliveries to priority assistance customers, including people with disability, the elderly, those with compromised immunity and people in mandatory isolation.
Woolworths supermarkets managing director Claire Peters said the company was focused on supporting the most vulnerable members of the community during these challenging times.
"To help support getting basic food and essentials to those that need it most, our teams have been doing everything they can to scale up online and home deliveries to the elderly, people with disabilities or those in mandatory self-isolation," Ms Peters said.
"Following an extraordinary level of demand for groceries in recent weeks, reducing trading hours in some of our stores to turn them into 'priority delivery hubs' will help us assist more people who can't access a store to get products they need."
More news: No new coronavirus cases in Greater Bendigo
Woolworths announced a focus on boosting online delivery capacity earlier this week.
Designating another 100 supermarkets as priority delivery hubs and launching a 'Woolworths basics box' was part of the strategy.
As a priority delivery hub, Woolworths Bendigo Marketplace would be open from 9am - 6pm, Monday - Sunday, from April 2.
Hours when the store was not open to customers would allow staff to process online orders. Woolworths said there would be a focus on meeting the increased demand for priority assistance customers.
A community hour, which saw stores reserved for health care and emergency services workers and some of the most vulnerable community members from 7am, would no longer be offered at Woolworths Bendigo Marketplace.
More to come
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