Icelandic Shoppers Splurge as Currency Woes Reduce Food Imports

Chad Thomas
Bloomberg
October 14, 2008

After a four-year spending spree, Icelanders are flooding the supermarkets one last time, stocking up on food as the collapse of the banking system threatens to cut the island off from imports.

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“We have had crazy days for a week now,” said Johannes Smari Oluffsson, manager of the Bonus discount grocery store in Reykjavik’s main shopping center. “Sales have doubled.”

Bonus, a nationwide chain, has stock at its warehouse for about two weeks. After that, the shelves will start emptying unless it can get access to foreign currency, the 22-year-old manager said, standing in a walk-in fridge filled with meat products, among the few goods on sale produced locally.

Iceland’s foreign currency market has seized up after the three largest banks collapsed and the government abandoned an attempt to peg the exchange rate. Many banks won’t trade the krona and suppliers from abroad are demanding payment in advance. The government has asked banks to prioritize foreign currency transactions for essentials such as food, drugs and oil.

The crisis is already hitting clothing retailers. A short walk from Bonus in the capital’s Kringlan shopping center, Ragnhildur Anna Jonsdottir, 38, owner of the Next Plc clothing store, said she can’t get any foreign currency to pay for incoming shipments and, even if she could, the exchange rate would be prohibitively high.

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Athugasemdir

[DoctorE (IP-tala skráð) 16.10.2008 kl. 14:19]

Bjarta hliðin er að við losnum líklega við offituvandamál

[Baldur Fjölnisson, 16.10.2008 kl. 15:48]

• 8
  Marik Bromine Says:
  October 14th, 2008 at 11:57 am

  Eat the rich.

  http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/HowTo:Cook_A_Human

  Food shortage, bah, there are free-range humans everywhere! I would advise that we eat the wealthy humans first, since they are more likely to be well-nourished and disease-free. Start with CEO’s of banks that have recieved bailout money. Use your devalued paper cash as a garnish.