A British Asian supermarket has gone viral after a video appeared to show men and women queuing separately during a recent promotional sale.
Footage filmed at Masala Bazaar in Romford, east London, showed women, many of them wearing traditional Muslim dress, waiting with children on one side of the store to receive cooking oil.
The video then pans to reveal a separate queue of men on the other side of a long row of chest freezers, waiting for the same product.
The video was filmed as the retailer celebrated the third anniversary of the opening of its east London branch last month.
On August 28, separate queues of men and women formed as shoppers were handed bottles of vegetable oil at the store, which specialises in halal meat and South Asian ingredients and operates branches across the UK.
In the following days, queues formed again, also largely divided by gender, as staff distributed what appeared to be joints of meat and frozen fish.
The store's manager told the Daily Mail today: '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 queue of women line up during a sale at an east London supermarket
Across the aisle, separated by chest freezers, another line formed, this time of men
Two days later, queues based on gender formed again for a promotion on fish
Romford was once one of London's best-known white working-class areas, but in recent decades it has undergone profound demographic and cultural change.
The so-called 'white flight' to neighbouring Essex has seen the town's white population fall from 95.2 per cent in 2001 to 75.3 per cent today. Over the same period, the proportion of residents identifying as Asian has risen from 2.1 per cent to 10.7 per cent.
Masala Bazaar's head office has been approached for comment on whether customers were queuing by gender.
However, a worker wrote on social media that customers had not been instructed to stand apart and that there was no policy or religious rule requiring segregated queues.
He said the arrangement was a response to 'severe congestion' and a 'large turnout of customers' attracted by the anniversary offers, according to Al Jazeera.
Addressing customers on social media, he wrote: 'Peace be upon you. On behalf of the store, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone. We would like to apologise for any mistakes or shortcomings that occurred during the organisation of this event. We thank you all for your patience.'
Masala Bazaar is owned by Euro Foods Group, founded by Bangladeshi-born British entrepreneur Shelim Hussain, whose fortune is estimated at £105million.
As well as its Romford branch, the company operates supermarkets in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea and Newport.
Zayuber, the Romford store manager, insisted the two lines were not intentional.
He said: '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.
'It was chaos and people were trying to take more than they should. 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.'
Staff were handing out cooking oil to customers as Masala Bazaar celebrated its third birthday
What do you make of the separate queues of men and women seen during this supermarket promotion?
Another store worker said the videos were filmed during celebrations marking the store's third anniversary, held between August 26 and 31.
There were no signs instructing customers to form separate queues for men and women.
He said: 'We were giving away oil, fish, quiche, grapes and biscuits. It was extremely busy.
'There were simply too many people gathering around, so we had to create two queues to hand out the food more efficiently.
'The men stood with the men and the women with the women. We didn't tell anyone where to stand. They formed the queues themselves.'
One woman, who has lived in Romford all her life and works at a local gym, said: 'The size of the queues would put me off going there anyway. I've never seen anything like that in another shop.'
Social media users who shared the footage expressed concern about the apparent separation of customers.
One wrote: 'Nobody passed a law saying England would adopt sex-segregated queues.'
Another shopper told the Daily Mail that men and women – many of whom were married couples – had stood apart so they could get each get the promotional free goods.