It is the first time in decades the supermarket giant will be making shipping deliveries.
It comes after extreme flooding damaged a 300-kilometre stretch of rail track on the Nullarbor.
This has caused extensive rail disruptions, meaning Woolworths has been unable to deliver supplies to stores via freight.
“We’re not the sole users of that rail line there will be quite a few vendors using it, food will be prioritised, but we will be in the queue like everyone else,” Woolworths spokesperson Karl Weber said.
Supplies will now be heading to Western Australian stores via ship including pallets of cereal, pantry essentials, canned food, napkins and toilet paper, beverages, and laundry and cleaning supplies.
Usually by rail, pallets would take five days to arrive from Sydney to Perth.
However, by sea it’s expected to take 10 days.
“We have 107 stores in Western Australia, so based on sales it will share to all the stores, so when the stock arrives depending on how the store trades we will send that stock to them,” Mr Weber said.
The crisis has seen many grocery shelves stripped bare.
Coles said it’s also shipping hundreds of containers from Sydney and Melbourne.
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Woolworths predicts it could be the end of March before supplies are back to normal.
