16 Apr 2020 --- UK retail sales have declined 4.3 percent over a span of five weeks during the coronavirus crisis, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC)-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor for March 2020, marking an historic low. This is the sharpest decline since 1995, and as the British government enforced lockdown measures, a stark contrast in sales before and after the restrictions were put in place became evident. However, the initial period of lockdown and quarantine measures led to an “unprecedented surge” in demand for food. This was evident at the time when supermarket shelves were stripped as panic buying spread around the country.