After a four-year spending spree, Icelanders are flooding the supermarkets
one last time, stocking up on food as the collapse of the banking system
threatens to cut the island off from imports. “We have had crazy days for
a week now,” said Johannes Oluffsson, manager of the Bonus discount
grocery store in Reykjavik’s main shopping center. “Sales have doubled.”
Bonus, a nationwide chain, has stock at its warehouse for about two
weeks. After that, the shelves will start emptying unless it can get access
to foreign currency, the 22-year-old manager said, standing in a walk-in
fridge filled with meat products, among the few goods produced locally.
