Coles has announced a raft of new measures in response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

In a letter to customers, CEO Steven Cain explained that there are new and tougher guidelines in place regarding cleaning and sanitation in stores.

“We know that health and safety is front of mind for lots of our customers at the moment, and we want to let you know that we’re working closely with the Department of Health to ensure the most effective protection for both you and our team members in our stores during the COVID-19 situation,” Mr Cain wrote, according to news.com.au.

He also explained that customers are not to enter the store if they’re unwell as well as the company adding “extra cleaning and sanitisation” to high contact areas of the stores.

“We ask all customers not to enter a store if they are unwell, to wash or sanitise their hands before entering stores, and to remind everyone to not touch their face unless your hands have been sanitised,” Mr Cain said.

Shoppers must now pack their own bags to “minimise both handling and close contact time” as well as discouraging cash transactions.

“When paying, we recommend card payments instead of cash, and we encourage you to use tap and go to make checking out as easy as possible,” Mr Cain said.

Coles is also making changes to the bakery section, with single item bakery goods to be individually pre-wrapped.

“Finally, we’ll be regularly rotating our teams on checkouts throughout the day to help keep everyone safer,” Mr Cain said.

“Please respect the guidelines we’re putting in place as your health and safety remains a priority for us.”

Meanwhile, Woolworths boss Brad Banducci explained to the ABC this morning that the chain had considered bringing back the option of free bags. However, there is not enough stock to make this option possible.

“Look, we are working through that in New Zealand and you will have noticed Coles decided to get customers to pack their own bags and the issue we have in terms of giving bags away which we are open to, is the number of bags we have in stock,” Mr Banducci said on air.

“The team are working through that issue as we talk and we will make further announcements over the weekend, but we are listening to our team and taking the advice seriously."