Mysterious trolley shortage at Sunderland's Tesco Extra leaves customers doing their 'big shop' disgruntled

On Saturday, October 21 at around noon, the Echo called in at the Tesco Extra in Roker having been correctly informed that every single trolley was in use.

Every trolley bay in the supermarket’s car park was empty and there were no available trolleys of any size inside the store either.

The shop did not appear to be particularly busy and plenty of parking spots were free. However, disgruntled consumers had to either wait until a trolley became available, or go elsewhere.

Tesco have not said if the problem is regular, but with Christmas not too far away, the retail giant says that more trolleys are on order to ensure an adequate supply for clientele carrying out a “big shop”.

In line with many other retailers, Tesco has also rolled out the Gatekeeper trolley lock system at its Sunderland Extra store. The system prevents trolleys from leaving the site.

A company spokesperson told the Echo: “We encourage all customers to return their trolleys once they have finished their shop both for others to use and because we don’t want them to cause any harm to the local environment.

“We use a specialist company called Trolleywise to retrieve our trollies when they have been taken off the store premises and we’d ask anyone who sees an abandoned Tesco trolley to use the Trolleywise app to report this, or let their local store know so we can get it back as soon as possible.

“Additionally, we have recently introduced pound locks on trolleys at our Sunderland Extra store.”

The huge Roker outlet has been open for a few years and is easily the chain’s biggest store in Sunderland.

There are plans to open a smaller shop in Southwick as part of a £2.1million retail development. However, the Tesco Express in The Bridges closed for good on April 2, 2022.

Tesco’s current television advertising campaign depicts one of their trolleys leaving its premises to rescue a gentleman called Billy from the bottom of a well; although this is not thought to have contributed to the shortage in Roker.