Credit: Freepik
In contrast to the recent news announced regarding new government restrictions being introduced from 25 December which has, in effect, cancelled the New Year’s Eve plans for many people in the Grand Duchy, Home from Home in Strassen has pulled out the stops and has successfully saved Christmas this year for many of its customers.
This time last year, Home from Home, who call themselves “the expat shop” which specialises is food, drink and other products from Britain, Ireland and other countries from where expatriate residents in Luxembourg originate, were having to explain to over 100 customers why they would not be receiving the turkeys and hams that they had ordered, and paid deposits on, due to the impending arrival of Brexit: this had resulted in a ban on the transport of meat and other products in the run up to Christmas. Home from Home’s supplier - whom they had paid in advance – was based in Kent in the south-east of England and within easy reach of the ferry port of Dover. The order had actually left the depot and was on its way to Dover when the news came through that it would not be allowed cross the Channel and enter (eventually) Luxembourg.
Those panic stations have not been replicated twelve months on, thankfully. Soon after the reality of what Brexit meant hit traders, Home from Home started sourcing fresh meat products from farms and other suppliers in Ireland. Soon after, they started receiving weekly deliveries of fresh sausages, hams, sausage rolls and various other products, shipped by land and sea, but not “landbridge” through Britain; instead, this new supply chain operated through the port of Rosslare in the south-east of Ireland, to France, on one of the 44 sailings between Ireland and France, Belgium and the Netherlands (pre-Brexit there were just twelve such sea routes in operation). Conversely, the number of ferry crossings between England and France, Belgium and the Netherlands has dropped significantly.
Talking with Chronicle.lu this afternoon, John Heffernan, founder and owner of Home from Home, explained that their order of almost 100 turkeys and multiple hams had arrived safely in a refrigerated container, and almost all had already been collected by customers in advance of the Christmas Day dinners. John also revealed that they had also ordered another 100 hams, in addition to those that had been ordered beforehand and also in addition to their normal weekly delivery, and that most of them had also been sold already.
Home from Home is open tomorrow, Friday 24 December (Christmas Eve), and will then be closed for six days over the holiday period.
