First Food Warehouse outside UK opening at Alliance

THE first Food Warehouse outside of the UK is officially opening at Alliance this week.

Alliance has had a shop refurbishment and rebrand, becoming Alliance Food Warehouse, stocking more of the Iceland range than has ever been seen in the islands. Operations director Keiran Poole is pictured. (Picture by Sophie Rabey, 33952453)

From tomorrow, shoppers at the Braye Road store will be able to purchase more than 6,000 new lines across the store.

‘Iceland was leaving the island and the opportunity came up for us to retain the brand, so we have transitioned and rebranded the store into Alliance The Food Warehouse, which is what you would see in the UK,’ said operations director Keiran Poole.

‘We will be underpinning that range with all the old label products.

‘We’ll be keeping Sainsbury’s, but the core focus will be the Iceland brands and the Sainsbury’s items will be there as a secondary offer.’

The entrance into the shop has been opened up to offer a better customer experience, and highlight some of the deals.

There are now 70 freezer cabinets in the store, taking up 175sq. m of space, which is the biggest frozen range in the Channel Islands.

In addition to the Iceland brands, Alliance will be selling Greggs, Harry Ramsden’s, and MyProtein, which Mr Poole said are already selling well.

‘We could see how powerful the brand is on the island, and we know how important it was to have Iceland as a value brand and fortunately we were able to retain it,’ said Mr Poole.

‘To be given the right to start the first Food Warehouse outside of the UK is a really big thing for us.’

The look of the shop will also change.

‘We’ve refreshed the whole store in terms of signage, with big deals and the Food Warehouse sign, but we’ve brought back a local theme on the aisle headers which feature the Guernsey flag,’ said Mr Poole.

‘We’ve reflowed the whole store in a way that’s much better to shop and everything that is relevant is next to each other.’

There is a private launch for the new store tonight. Then from 8am tomorrow, the new store will be officially open to the public.

There will be giveaways and food tasting and a chance to get Pepsi Max goodies and to win store vouchers up to £50.

Representatives from Anytime Fitness will also be present handing out goodies to customers.

n There will be two core Iceland stores opening in Jersey in March, with more to follow.