Bradford supermarket chain Morrisons has predicted that 11.44am this morning will be its busiest minute of the year.

At that time, 45 trolleys per second are expected to be go through checkouts at the company’s stores across the country on its most frantic day of the year for food sales.

Morrisons analysed shopping data from a number of previous years to come up with the prediction.

Morrisons Retail Director Martyn Fletcher said: “People want the freshest ingredients by Christmas Eve and that’s why our stores are busiest on December 23. This year, we are ready with extra staff, computerised queue management and an army of bag packers to make sure shoppers get the quickest and most stress-free experience possible.”

Store hours have been extended and throughout December staff will work an additional million hours, with more than 1,000 colleagues from head office leaving their desks to work on the shop floor.

The company will also be using its Intelligent Queue Management system, which analyses the number of customers coming into the store to predict how many check-outs will need to be open when those customers have completed their shopping.