Customers at an Adelaide shopping mall have reported getting more than they bargained for after minor electrical shocks forced some to take extreme measures when removing items from shelves.
Key points:
- Customers at the Foodland store in Brighton reported suffering from electric shocks.
- The ongoing issue was reported in a Facebook post.
- Company CEO says store staff are doing ‘everything they can’ to reduce static
The problem at the Brighton Foodland supermarket was reported yesterday in a Facebook post that has since generated dozens of responses.
“Anyone else get massive electric shocks when shopping at Brighton Foodland,” asked Shane Lavida.
“It’s not a pleasant experience and I was never a natural break dancer until I started getting zapped there.”
Foodland said the problem had been caused by static electricity and that it was taking steps to reduce it.
Mr. Lavida’s post prompted other buyers to submit similar accounts.
“My kids always laugh at me because I go and grab stuff and go ‘ooh!'” local singer Becky Blake, a Brighton regular, told ABC Radio Adelaide’s Stacey Lee and Nikolai Beilharz.
“It doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens pretty regularly, so you walk in and say, ‘Am I going to be surprised today?'”
Another customer recounted that his smartwatch registered an increase in his heartbeat while he was in the store.
“My pulse went from 85 walking around shopping there to 135 with the shock,” Desley Watson-Raston said.
“I’ve been shopping there since 2019 and I always get it. I’ve complained probably a dozen times.
“You don’t jump around the fruits and vegetables, so you can move around there pretty easily, but once you get to the fridges, that’s when it starts, it continues to the dog aisle.”
Dr. Watson-Raston has resorted to using a makeshift lasso.
“I use a dog leash that I take off the shelf and whip it like a whip to get the dog food down, that’s one method,” he said.
“You can end up with the lead snagged on the metal thing, and you have to pick it back up to get it out.”
Antistatic test wheel
Lavida said he wasn’t surprised that others had also noticed the shaking.
“It’s… a static electricity thing, like the old science experiments we used to do, like the carpet and the balloon,” he said.
“In the end, I actually started using the back of my hand to take that first initial shock.”
Foodland CEO Franklin dos Santos said the store was exploring ways to “remove the shock, because it’s not happening to everyone.”
“The store has done absolutely everything they can to try to fix the problem at this point,” he said.
“Fundamentally, there’s a lot of humidity in the supermarket. If you think about refrigerators, you think about the environment you’re in, they dump refrigeration moisture into the air.
“We had engineers in the store, electronics engineers, we put dehumidifiers in the air conditioner to remove moisture, and the store is now testing carts with anti-static wheels.”
But he added that the Brighton store was a “beautiful shop” and suggested rubber-soled shoes as a precaution for affected customers to consider.
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