As Greece prepares for a historic referendum on Sunday, which many believe will ultimately decide its European fate, panic buying has set in at many Greek supermarkets, with sales up by around two-thirds in some stores.
According to news source Iefimerida, supermarket operators are reporting sales growth between 65% and 67% higher than normal for this time of year. Many stores are fast running out of produce, with vegetables, rice, pasta, oil, and canned products disappearing from the shelves.
One retail spokesperson told Iefimerida that the mass buying at stores was ‘reminiscent of the Christmas shopping period’.
Earlier this week, a spokesperson for Alfa Beta Vassilopoulos, part of the Delhaize Group told Dutch retail news outlet Nos.nl that the retailer is “obviously prepared for a possible Greek exit from the euro zone. […] But there is no question of when. Everything is still as usual. Everything is punctually paid on time. So we continue to send supplies.”
Yesterday (1 July), Societe Generale SA’s chief executive officer Frederic Oudea suggested that a ‘Grexit’ would not lead to a financial crisis rippling through Europe, telling Bloomberg that, “Whatever the scenario is at the end of the day, the euro zone can handle this scenario. The situation in terms of the structure of the banks, the exposure to Greece and the Greek economy is totally different.”
© 2015 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones
