The emergency brake will apply from Saturday.
If the incidence value in the district is over 100, then only half as many customers are allowed into the shops.
The trade association HDE warns of the consequences.
Berlin - The federal emergency brake is likely to have far-reaching consequences for consumers in Germany.
From Saturday (April 23), Aldi, Lidl, Kaufland or Edeka will face long queues in front of the shops, warns the HDE trade association.
In other countries such as France or Portugal, restricted opening times or access restrictions had already led to long waiting times in some cases.
Because the demand for food and everyday goods remains constant.
The Schwarz Group around Lidl and Kaufland also expects waiting times.
"From our point of view, the new requirement to limit customers harbors the risk of queues in front of the branches [...] instead of equalizing customer flows," a spokeswoman told the food newspaper.
Nevertheless, the new distance rule will be implemented in the branches, the spokeswoman continued.
Lidl, Aldi, Kaufland: This is what the new federal emergency brake measures provide
The measures of the Federal Emergency Brake relate to regions in Germany with an incidence value of over 100. 20 square meters per person must be available in stores from now on.
This applies to sales areas under 800 square meters.
For larger shops, the legislature provides for a space of 40 square meters per customer.
This corresponds to a doubling of the distances, because until now, depending on the federal state, 10 or 20 square meters per customer were sufficient.
According to the EHI, the average sales area of a Lidl branch was 898 square meters in 2018.
In a Lidl branch, an average of 42 people would be allowed in the future.
With the previous regulation, about twice as many customers could shop at the same time, depending on the federal state.
The trade association HDE considers the doubling of the distances to be counterproductive: "The associated gatherings of people will create unnecessary opportunities for infection."
Federal emergency brake continues to allow Click & Collect: trade association welcomes decision
While the trade association is critical of the new distance rules, it assesses other measures of the federal emergency brake as positive.
For example, that shopping with a negative test remains possible up to an incidence of 150.
It is also positive that the Click & Collect system continues to exist - regardless of the respective incidence.
With Click & Collect, customers order online, but then pick up the goods themselves in the store.
It is good that our arguments for applying the curfew later and for enabling shopping with a negative test and Click & Collect have been taken into account.
HDE General Manager Stefan Genth
Overall, however, the trade association remains critical, because the measures only affect individual sectors of the economy and do not take into account the actual risk of infection. The managing director relies on findings from the TU Berlin and the Robert Koch Institute, which classify the risk of infection when shopping as low according to the current state of knowledge. "That is why the HDE and its companies will pursue the raising of a constitutional complaint," Genth continued.
