The boss of supermarket chain Iceland has warned this Christmas will be “crucial” for shoppers and businesses, with over half of customers worried about how they’ll afford the festive season.
But managing director Richard Walker has predicted brighter times for 2024, providing inflation keeps falling - and said the supermarket is committed to keeping prices frozen for its shoppers. Families have been squeezed by soaring food prices in recent months, and December can be particularly stressful if you’re worried about your finances.
Mr Walker said he thinks more people will borrow money for essentials, and is expecting a higher numbers of applications for the Iceland Food Club, which offers shoppers interest-free loans to spend on food in stores. He warned there is “not really much room for error” this festive season, when budgets are so tight.
Speaking to The Mirror, he said: “We surveyed many of our customers and over half of them are concerned about affording the festive season this year. Half of them, about 53%, said they’re planning on buying fewer presents. It really is a crucial Christmas.
”It's going to be all about value and people were already struggling to make ends meet but obviously with the cost of living crisis, inflation - albeit inflation is already coming down now a bit, it's still in the system - so it's more important than ever that Iceland is there to step up and support our customers. Budgets are really tight.”
One thing Iceland is doing differently, is axing its Christmas advertising campaign - instead, the supermarket plans on reinvesting what it would have spent on “supporting customers”. Mr Walker recently called the decision a “no-brainer” - but said he isn’t “Scrooge” and hopes to reintroduce an Iceland Christmas advert in future years.
He said: “I’ve always kind of been a bit perplexed by the amount of money, the millions, that are spent on Christmas advertising, both producing the ad and distributing it out on TV. So we just decided this year, it's not appropriate. Our customers don't want to see some multi-million pound TV campaign, they just want value. We’ve reinvested all that money in prices for our customers instead.”
But will we see supermarket prices finally come down in 2024? The answer isn't clear cut, but the hope is that "things will settle" next year. Mr Walker said: "We’ve continued to freeze the price of many of the lines into 2024, we’ll continue with things like the over-60s discount… we're going to continue to invest in things like the Iceland Food Club.
"That's been taken up now by around 30 million families since we launched it a year ago. We've extended millions of pounds of loans to people and its really helped them through difficult times, times like Christmas."