IGA has announced the extension of its Priority Shop service to include eligible frontline healthcare workers.
This follows the launch of its home delivery service, IGA Priority Shop, to support customers who are elderly, vulnerable or isolated by providing essential grocery packs to their door.
To launch this eligibility extension, IGA has partnered with St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney to provide 30 healthcare professionals a Priority Shop pack each week for the next four weeks. IGA wants to thank Australia’s dedicated frontline workers, in hope that access to these boxes will give doctors and nurses at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney one less thing to think about each day.
“Supporting local communities is at the heart of what each of our 1,400 independently owned and operated IGA stores across the country do, which is why it was clear that we needed to open up this service for those who are working on the frontline during this pandemic. We hope it provides some relief for these workers,” Metcash Food CEO Scott Marshall said.
About Priority Shop
The Priority Shop service offers four standard grocery packs to ensure particularly vulnerable community members have basic grocery supplies. These include:
- The Essentials – includes milk, bread, butter, eggs, cereal, toilet paper, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, soup.
- Pantry Plus – includes The Essentials Pack items plus tea bags, instant coffee, cheese, rice, pasta, pasta sauce, red meat, chicken and/or pork, chocolate block, sweet biscuits, frozen meal for one, long life juice, canned seafood, tissues, toothpaste, soap bar.
- Dog Pack – wet dog food, dry dog food.
- Cat Pack – wet cat food, dry cat food.
The packs can be ordered online at igashop.com.au or by calling 1800 018 384.
Following the extension, the service is now available to frontline workers, community members who are elderly (70+), people who are immunosuppressed, Indigenous Australians (50+), people with a disability and people who are required to self-isolate. Customers will be required to validate their eligibility before being able to order from the Priority Shop either online or via a call centre.
More partnerships
Furthermore, IGA has also announced that it has been partnering with various businesses including Ola and Uber, with more to come, who will work with retailers to bolster their current delivery offering.
“IGA will continue to support its local communities with its Priority Shop boxes for those who have no support and are unable to access essential items,” Mr Marshall said.
“We’re pleased to be able to make our Priority Shop offering accessible and available to more Australians.”
Shelves stocked and ensuring safety
For those that can make it to their local supermarket, Mr Marshall reassures consumers that IGA retailers are working “extremely hard” to keep shelves stocked with the products everyone needs over Easter as well as ensuring stores are as safe as can be for staff and customers.
“We’ve implemented a number of measures to keep staff and customers safe including additional cleaning of all common touch points, one-way aisles in some smaller stores and introducing shopper limits to make sure that social distancing guidelines can be achieved,” IGA retailer and Chair of the IGA National Retailer Council Joseph Romeo said.
“IGA’s network of stores are truly in a unique position to help locals, and we will continue to work tirelessly to support our local communities.”
