Queue for cheaper food at new store
Monday 16th June 2008, 3:00PM BST.
DEMAND from Islanders for cheaper food led to the new Iceland supermarket almost selling out at the weekend.
Customers were queuing to get in when the Georgetown store opened on Friday and freezers lay empty over the weekend as demand for the low-priced food outstripped supply.
The franchise is operated by Sandpiper, whose chief executive, Tony O’Neill, said that the response so far had been ‘phenomenal’. Consumer Council chairman Deputy Alan Breckon said that consumers were voting with their feet and looking for the good value.
Mr O’Neill said that the shop would get more supplies today and tomorrow, but Wednesday would see a significant increase in deliveries to meet customer demand.
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Buy at english prices an advert that you would not have seen ten years ago causes people to queue for the shop to open. Deputy breckon says people are voting with their feet i agree, give us a third supermarket like we had and let us have another choice i do hope the states are not going to try and pass iceland as that third supermarket.
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I’m all for a better choice,but with Iceland you do get what you pay for,and with these products they are not a lot better than ‘Safeway Saver’ products.Bring in another supermarket that will offer products that we can only get through the Co Op and Sandpiper shops,but at a reasonable cost.I’m no snob but Iceland products are a bit lower down the food chain from my experience.
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Thank goodness for SMALL mercies at last a single parent can afford to shop ! and not have to buy from the out of date shelf or just special offers. Normal food at dare I say it normal prices and YES we are voting with our feet and have done for ages especially with stupid GST (and a non existant income support system which only helps some poeple not all) which in most cases is MORE then the 3%, at least at Iceland, ok it has the 3% added on to it but you can see thats all that has been added. As for income support dont get me started !
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I totally agree with David. We need a 3rd supermarket like a Tesco or Asda and then we would see prices drop when the local cartel is broken.It would be the end of Checkers as their prices are very high.
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Hi, Dave Bushnell, I agree with you, I also liked playing golf with you, your golfing friend from the USA, Brian.
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With the opening of Iceland i am going to need a bigger freezer! The money i will save!
But dont expect me to buy one on island. What with GST and UK Vat not been taken off i am better off buying a freezer from aboard even with the shipping. And yes i will make sure it is less than £400!
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Excellent news! I moved to England from Jersey over 11 years ago, & it is places like Iceland, that make shopping more affordable. It might not have the quality, but this gives people the choice. I hope to move back to Jersey soon, so how about allowing Asda, Netto or Aldi in as well!!? Happy days!
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All well and good us asking for Tesco, Asda etc .. but ask yourself why they are so cheap in the UK – its because they all have each other to contend with.
These supermarkets are not the friendly Jamie Oliver frequented places that they make themselves out to be. If Tesco come over here and saw that bread sells for £1.50 a loaf and milk at a quid a litre do you really think they will drop the price to match their UK store ? Of course not – they will squeeze out the competition then become a local monopoly themselves. Look at a great many UK high streets, deserted of food + retail shops and populated by fast food outlets and estate agents – with a hypermarket five miles out of town.
What we need is a regulatory body with enough balls, power and freedom to stop the blatant profiteering that the existing shops enjoy.
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Personally, I can not make my mind up whether it is either arrogance or idiocy that stops our “Government” from listening to the people whose interests it is *supposed* to represent.
Do our glorious leaders in their ivory towers, and more particularly – expensive houses, have the foggiest idea of what it is like for the majority of Jersey folk?
I am lucky enough to have a good job, however can not and will not be able to afford any more than the one bedroom flat I have at the moment, given the costs that we all face every day. The least we can expect is a third option as mentioned above, but I fear that DK (above) is right… Even if we had a regulatory body to control these issues – how many of us would trust it to be free from the narcissistic cronyism that we experience everywhere else?
I would be interested to see if anyone can explain to me why well educated locals should not take their skills and leave. I don’t want to go, I love my island, but how can we afford to stay? (No ‘Boat in the morning’ comments please…)
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I agree give us a 3rd Supermarket like Tesco or Asda. Iceland is like a dream come true as many of us struggle with our food bills. It is a worry how much longer the ordinary person will be able to survive with the hefty rising costs. We don’t get a rise to cover them, we don’t even get the cost of living instead it is just more and more added on every week. How income support works I will never know but before long there will be many a person desperate to survive, if they could leave I’m sure they would but how does single families just up and go?
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While it is great to have iceland with its cheaper prices here in jersey, it would be a great shame to let any of the ruthless big-boys from the uk in. DK is right in saying that Tesco and asda would butter us up before hiking up the prices once they’d put everyone else out of business. A one off Lidl or Aldi would be ok though, like the hopefully one off iceland. One is enough thank you. A massive part of this islands charm is that we don’t have those consumer giants here, please can we keep it that way.
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