Aeon Mall Tebrau City’s supermarket section is fully opened to the public at 3pm. Earlier the supermarket section was partially closed for cleaning and restocking. — Picture by Ben Tan

JOHOR BARU, April 12 — The supermarket section of Aeon Tebrau City was fully reopened to the public at 3pm today with most essential groceries restocked after they were depleted last night following a surprise visit and treat to shoppers from the Johor crown prince.

Checks by Malay Mail showed that the supermarket aisles have been cleaned of the mess left behind by over-excited shoppers who were treated to grocery purchases totalling over RM1 million from Tunku Ismail Ibrahim.

An Aeon Tebrau City staff on duty said almost all aisles have been restocked. The only exception was the toiletries aisle which were missing certain brand of shampoo and soap.

“We had closed this morning and partially opened our doors to the public by 1.30pm and by 3pm we were fully operational,” the worker who asked not to be named told Malay Mail when met.

Hundreds of people had thronged the supermarket yesterday afternoon after word spread that the Tengku Mahkota Johor or TMJ, as Tunku Ismail is popularly called, was footing the grocery bill of shoppers there, up to a limit of RM3,000 per person.

The supermarket sweep started at about 7pm and ended by 8pm.

Earlier today, another supermarket in Pontian, Johor was flooded by hundreds more shoppers following a rumour that Tunku Ismail would again foot the bill on groceries.

Social media posts showed that customers had already filled their shopping trolleys and queued up at the cashier counters since 10.30am despite the supermarket management repeatedly denying the allegation over its public broadcast.

“We believe there was a voice note that was passed around yesterday alleging that TMJ would be present at Econsave Pontian at 12pm today to sponsor groceries to the public.

“But we have checked with the police and they confirmed it was fake,” Econsave operations manager Mas Imran Adam told Malay Mail when contacted.