Mark & Spencers Ireland has announced that it will not be able to offer pre-Christmas Food To Order to its Irish customer base this year.
According to The Irish Times, the retailer took to social media to make the following announcement, “Given the current challenges in the food industry, there was too much risk that we could potentially let customers down with key items in their orders ahead of the all-important day - we’d never want to do that.”
Speaking with Checkout, a spokesperson said, "Unfortunately, we are unable to offer our Christmas Food To Order to customers in Ireland due to the complex checks and delays resulting from Brexit meaning there was too much risk that we could potentially let customers down."
UK Pre-orders
On 17 September, M&S announced that it is clear that Brits are ready to start the celebrations early this year.
Referring to the previous week, the retailer said there were 500,000 searches for Christmas on the M&S website and already M&S has sold nearly 1,000 frozen turkeys as its UK shoppers start prepping for the festive season.
French Store Closures
Also on 17 September, M&S said it would close all 11 French franchise food stores it runs with its partner SFH because trade rules in place since Britain left the European Union had hammered product availability.
M&S said on Thursday that its remaining nine French franchise stores, run with Lagardere Travel Retail, will continue to trade and the pair were working on a sustainable future business model.
Chairman Archie Norman had complained for months that M&S was struggling to get goods into Ireland and France since Britain left the EU single market at the beginning of the year, due to the huge amount of extra paperwork.
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