Islanders left without milk, butter, meat and cheese for five days amid supermarket fail

Residents of a Scottish island were left without essential provisions for five days after the freezers and chillers at their only supermarket failed.

The Co-operative at Castlebay on the Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides was unable to keep goods such as milk, cheese and meat following the breakdown of equipment last Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the usual delivery of fresh fruit and vegetables did not appear at the supermarket on Friday as supermarket bosses stopped the regular order for the island in light of the equipment failure.

Engineers were sent to fix the freezers on Friday but the first delivery of frozen and chilled food was not due to arrive until tonight (Monday), it is understood.

Torcuil Crichton (Labour), MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, said the situation had been “distressing” for residents, particularly those with young children to feed.

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One Barra mother, who asked not to be named, said: “Barra has a couple of little community shops but they are very small with only small amounts of fresh and frozen food, if any

“It was a real issue when the freezers broke down at the Co-op but then when the fruit and veg didn’t come, that made it a lot worse. People had been making vegetable curries and vegetable chillies, that kind of thing, but then the vegetable order was cancelled. That was pretty detrimental. A double whammy.

“People were just trying to eat whatever they could from their freezer and get by on what they had, but not everyone has the money to keep their freezer fully stocked or a freezer big enough.

“Also, a lot of visitors were impacted because they were turning up looking to stock up for their holidays, and there was very little in the Co-op.”

She claimed there had been very little communication from Co-op management above shop level about when full stock would return.

“It is very frustrating. We all use the Co-op but then it felt like you were not getting much respect back from them. Nobody has starved but it is frustrating to think that the island is not a priority.”

Mr Crichton wrote to Co-operative Scotland on Saturday to raise his concerns about the situation and queried the level of investment in the company’s stores across the Outer Hebrides.

He said: "I understand that the Creagorry Co-op in Benbecula faced the same situation some months ago with broken-down chilling cabinets and this raises the concern that there is not enough investment in the Co-op stores in the island chain.

"The Co-op provides a valuable service throughout the Western Isles and in Barra in particular has a near monopoly on food supplies. I urge the Co-op to take stock of the situation, carry out repairs as soon a possible and find a swift method of limited restocking from other island stores.”

The MP added on Monday that the situation now “seemed to be resolved”.

“The Co-op really needs to address resillience. These are lifeline stores,” he said.

A spokesperson for Co-op, said: “At Co-op we take our responsibility to the communities we serve, particularly in remote areas, incredibly seriously and our Castlebay store is amongst those which we have designated with Lifeline Status. This means that we have dedicated resources in our supply chain and logistics teams whose role is to monitor and act urgently to address any challenges with product availability and this team has worked at speed to resolve the issues at Castlebay.”

A delivery was due on Monday night with further supplies due on Tuesday and Wednesday.