Members of the public are set to stage a protest against the automation of grocery stores ahead of Tesco’s AGM later this month.

The demonstration will take place in two weeks’ time, on Friday 16 June at 10am, at the Welwyn Garden City railway station, where shuttle buses are taking shareholders to the retailer’s AGM at its head office.

This will give protesters “enough time to lobby shareholders”, according to an organiser.

Last year, Tesco chose to remove a majority of manned checkouts from its bigger stores due to a lack of customer demand.

The UK’s largest retailer said at the time that the growing customer shift towards self-service checkouts was behind the move.

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The demonstration will take place after a petition was launched last month. It currently has over 240,000 signatures opposing the move to automation.

An organiser for the protest told The Welwyn and Hatfield Times: “This new way of shopping is destroying jobs, disenfranchising many and making our shopping trips self-service-card-only. This is not what tens of thousands of you want.”