Food supplies weather the storms

Friday 03 January 2014

Jersey's lifeline freight links with the UK are being maintained as the British Isles remain in the grip of Atlantic storms.

Food supplies are arriving in the Island twice a day despite some cancellations due to the severe weather, which has disrupted travel since last month and is forecast to continue throughout January. Although Condor’s fast ferry traffic to Weymouth has been hit by cancellations, the Portsmouth route which carries fresh food has continued with only a few delays.

Channel Islands Co-operative Society’s Chief Operating Officer, Mark Cox, said they had coped reasonably well with the storms before Christmas, and that fresh stock to fill shelves arrived last Thursday, and again over the weekend.

A spokesman for Sandpiper CI – which includes Checkers Xpress, M&S and Iceland stores – agreed, saying that the Christmas and New Year breaks had a greater effect than the weather as there were no sailings on the religious and Bank Holidays. Waitrose also reported that the weather had caused minimal disruption to its customers.

But with the severe storm conditions expected to last to the end of the month, the Island’s commercial fishing fleet has been confined to port for the past fortnight, which is its most lucrative time of year.  The President of the Jersey Fishermen’s Association, Don Thompson, says the forecast is not good for his members.

‘This is a very important time of year for us but we have to accept that it is part of what we do, and that we have to live with the vagaries the weather,’ he said.