A British businessman has made light of people panic-buying toilet paper by filling the toy grabber machines at his amusement arcade with loo rolls.

Like Australia, shoppers in the United Kingdom have wiped supermarket shelves clean of toilet paper and other long-life products in case they need to self-quarantine due to coronavirus.

To try and cheer people up amid the chaos, the owner of Braddicks Holiday Centre in Devon has emptied all the toys in the machines in exchange for a more precious commodity.

No longer can visitors use a mechanical claw to try and snatch Frozen 2 or Peter Rabbit toys from the machines.

Visitors can try their luck at pinching a roll of toiler paper or hand sanitiser. Photo: Rob Braddick

Owner Rob Braddick, 48, told CNN the toys were “evicted” on Tuesday.

Now, visitors can pay 50p (65 cents) for three turns on the toilet roll grabber, or £1 ($1.30) per turn for Carex, which Mr Braddick described as the “Rolls-Royce of hand sanitisers”.

“It’s a bit of light relief with everything that’s going on,” he said.

“Hopefully it will raise a smile, which I think everybody needs.”

In Australia, tensions over toilet paper have reached new heights.

Shocking scenes of shoppers fighting in supermarkets have flooded social media, with two women being charged with affray after a violent clash at a Woolworths in Sydney during the weekend.