Panic buying hysteria has hit regional areas with tour buses of people showing up from cities to strip supermarket shelves of sought after products.

It comes as one Foodworks has made the drastic move amid the coronavirus outbreak to call on customers to show ID as they enter stores to prove they live locally.

One woman tweeted she lives in a small town with a population of 1500 people, about 100 kilometres from Melbourne, where buses of people arrived on Tuesday.

“Yesterday four tour buses arrived from Melbourne and 200 people descended on our supermarket and stripped the shelves of everything. Not. One. Foodstuff. Left,” she wrote.

Riddells Creek Foodworks, between Melbourne and Bendigo, wrote on Facebook it would have “no other choice but to enforce very strict conditions for entry into our store”.

I live in a small town of 1500 people 100 kms from Melbourne. Yesterday 4 tour buses arrived from Melbourne and 200 people descended on our supermarket and stripped the shelves of everything. Not. One. Foodstuff. Left — Jennifer Keast (@DrJenniferKeast) March 17, 2020

“You will now be asked for ID proof that you life in the following areas – Riddells Creek, Clarkfield, Monegeetta, Bolinda, Romsey, Lancefield, Sunbury Riddell Road up to and including Settlement Road (from Riddells Creek End), Gisborne, New Gisborne, Cherokee,” it said.

“We apologise for any inconvenience this will cause. Unfortunately, due to the current situation, we can only accommodate customers living in these areas.”

View photos The owner of Kinglake Foodworks claims people from Melbourne have been snatching up products from her store. Source: Instagram More

It later wrote in a separate post it wasn’t a decision the supermarket wanted to make and was trying to avoid these great measures.

“Keep in mind Riddells Creek is only a small township, so our first option could well have been to only accept customers living in Riddells Creek,” the Foodworks said.

“Knowing we have customers who are regular weekly shoppers with us that live outside of Riddells Creeks, restricting them just wasn’t going to happen. But we had to make the decision as to where the cut off point was.

“We are simply trying to do the best we can given the situation. We, like all other stores, have limits in place across the store. We also are still out of stock of a number of items. Deliveries are delayed.”

The owner of Foodworks in Kinglake, about 50 kilometres northeast of Melbourne, also announced its deliveries had to be cut back.

“We ask our customers to show compassion, support and respect to our staff members and others during these tough times,” it wrote on Facebook.

“We are working hard to ensure we have stock on our shelves however our deliveries have been cut back.

“We cannot control if a particular product is unavailable due to the current conditions and we are doing our best to ensure we have supplies for you all.”

Foodworks owner Dora Kordos told ABC News people had been arriving from as far as Essendon in Melbourne’s northwest to snatch up their products.

View photos Kinglake Foodworks have had to cut back its deliveries amid the coronavirus outbreak. Source: Instagram More

“We’ve seen people from Essendon. People we’ve never seen before. Somebody shared on the Eltham Facebook page that we were fully stocked and we’ve been inundated from all over the state,” she said.

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