Asian supermarket in London sparks outrage as customers queue in 'gender segregated' lines

The clips, recorded on August 28, show shoppers appearing to line up in gender-divided rows as staff handed out complimentary bottles of vegetable oil at the East London store, which focuses on halal meat and South Asian groceries.

Over the subsequent days of the event, which ran from August 26 to 31, similar patterns were reported as the shop distributed what seemed to be meat joints and frozen fish.

No signage directed customers to queue in separate lines by sex.

The footage quickly circulated on social media, prompting widespread discussion.

Zayuber, the store's manager, maintained that the gender-divided lines were entirely unplanned.

He told the Daily Mail: "It was so overcrowded in here for the third anniversary. At events like this, we have a 'power hour' where we give out free gifts, so everyone wants them."

An Asian supermarket in east London sparks outrage as customers queue in 'gender segregated' lines

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He added: "We told customers they needed to line up, but we can't control them. People automatically started queuing with the men on one side and the women on the other. After about a minute, everyone was back together."

A colleague corroborated this account, saying two queues formed purely to distribute items more efficiently amid the crush.

He said: "We didn't tell anyone where to stand. They formed the queues themselves."

Romford, historically regarded as one of London's most prominent white working-class areas, has experienced significant demographic shifts in recent decades.

Video footage from the Romford branch of Masala Bazaar shows men and women forming separate queues

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Census data reveals that the town's white population has declined from 95.2 per cent in 2001 to 75.3 per cent at present, a trend commonly attributed to so-called "white flight" into neighbouring Essex.

During the same period, the share of residents who identify as Asian has risen from 2.1 per cent to 10.7 per cent.

These changes have reshaped the area's commercial landscape, with retailers such as Masala Bazaar establishing themselves to serve the town's evolving communities.

Reacting to the footage, one commenter wrote: "Nobody passed a law saying England would adopt sex-segregated queues."

However, one shopper told the Daily Mail that married couples had deliberately stood apart in order to each collect the promotional items.

A local woman who has spent her entire life in Romford and works at a nearby gym remarked that the sheer length of the queues alone would deter her from visiting.

She told the publication: "I've never seen anything like that in another shop."

Masala Bazaar is part of Euro Foods Group, established by Bangladeshi-born British businessman Shelim Hussain, whose wealth is estimated at £105million.

The company also runs stores in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea and Newport.