Food retailers stock up ahead of festive rush

Forest Stores co-owner Keith Bienvenu said any disruption would come too late to affect deliveries to their store.

‘Everything we have ordered we have managed to get hold of and it came on Friday’s boat,’ he said.

‘We tend to order a day early to give ourselves a little leeway, obviously you can’t go too early as you need everything to be fresh. Everything has worked out really well this year.

'If there is disruption this weekend, it will come too late to affect us.’

Ferries will be disrupted this weekend, with a yellow weather warning of force-seven winds in place for the Channel Islands’ shipping area.

High winds are forecast to persist over the weekend before settling down on Monday.

Creaseys director Jonathan Creasey said that its M&S franchise in Guernsey still had good supplies of turkeys this year.

‘There is nothing unusual to report,’ he said.

‘There is a little disruption expected this weekend but nothing too onerous. There is always a little bad weather at this time of year and it is all manageable.’

Mr Bienvenu said that turkey was still by far and away the number one Christmas dinner seller and although he did not have exact figures, they would be supplying hundreds of turkeys to islanders this year.

‘We have had quite a lot of orders for local pork and beef too,’ he said.

‘And a few geese this year, which we have struggled to get hold of for the past couple of years. It’s really good rich meat but quite fatty, however that is great for the roast potatoes.’

There was no shortage of mince pies either at Senners, with the bakery expecting to sell between 4,000 to 5,000 over the Christmas period.

‘Bizarrely we do tend to sell a lot of doughnuts as well at this time of year,’ said owner Martin Senner.

‘But then any reason to have a doughnut is a good one.’

The bakery in St Martin’s is open until 1pm on Christmas Eve, before closing until New Year’s Eve for a mid-Yuletide clean-up.