Increase in cigarette sales down to reduction in smuggling

CASTLEBRIDGE supermarket owner Louis Flanagan said a surprise development is that the sale of cigarettes has doubled since the coronavirus crisis began.

The Centra proprietor was perplexed by the rise in sales at first until he concluded that it is down to the the curtailment of illegally imported cigarettes and a reduction in the numbers of people travelling abroad and bringing tobacco products home with them.

‘The smugglers can’t get their cigarettes around the country because there are too many check-points and they are unable to travel,’ said Louis.

‘It has to be that the smuggling of cigarettes is down. There’s nowhere closed that was selling cigarettes, apart from pubs which wouldn’t sell a lot nowadays,’ he said.

‘I never believed the cigarette companies when they said how big the smuggling racket is. That caught everyone on the hop.

‘Drink sales have increased a good bit but you’d expect that because the pubs and restaurants have closed.’

In terms of overall business, the number of individual sales is down at Flanagan’s but the value of each purchase is up by 40% with people visiting the store less often but spending more when they do.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, they had ‘zero’ home deliveries but now they account for 20% of the business as so many customers are cocooning.

‘Before this, it was zero, we didn’t do deliveries,’ said Louis.

‘You have a total change in eating habits. There is a 100% increase in fruit and veg and 60% in meat and when it comes to home baking, think of whatever figure you like, it’s unbelievable.’

‘People who went to restaurants are cooking nice food at home.

‘For some reason, Philadelphia cheese and grated cheese are big sellers.’

School and college students who worked part-time in the supermarket at the weekends, are now working for much longer hours, to help keep fulfill the increased demand.

‘We have 42 staff here on the books. When the schools and colleges closed, the students who were getting eight to ten hours are now getting 40 hours and it’s beano time for them’, said Louis.

The supermarket owner said high convenience outlets and outlets offering a delicatessen service have been ‘hammered’ as there are so few people working and moving around.