A MAJOR supermarket chain is shutting more stores following a string of other closures.
Iceland will be closing another three supermarkets between August and September.
GettyThree more Iceland stores will be closing for good this year[/caption]
The frozen food specialist has already shut more than half a dozen shops since February.
Right now, there are around 500 Iceland branches across the UK.
Iceland’s Cowden High Street store in Fife will bring down the shutters for good on Saturday, August 12.
It will then close its Llanelli store on Saturday, September 2.
The chain’s supermarket in the Market Shopping Centre in Crewe will then close for the last time on Saturday, September 16.
Iceland previously announced it would close the following stores within weeks:
St David’s Place, Swansea – July 29Grange Road, Birkenhead – September 16
It follows the closures of 11 Iceland supermarkets earlier this year.
The frozen food chain closed two stores in February in:
Mill Lane, BromsgroveChineham Shopping Centre, Basingstoke
It then proceeded to close a further four stores in March in:
White Rose Centre, RhylSouth Street, Newport, Isle of WightSt Catherine’s Place, Bedminster, BristolDeiniol Centre, Bangor
Plus, a further three stores in Newport, Berwick and Hexham closed on Saturday, April 22.
Shoppers in Flint, Wales, also lost their local store on May 27.
Iceland’s Beccle branch in Suffolk shut for good on June 17.
It means that by September the total number of Iceland closures this year will hit 16.
But Iceland has opened a new store in Slough and two new shops under the Food Warehouse brand in Kendal and Aberdeen in recent weeks.
An Iceland spokesperson said: “Across Iceland and The Food Warehouse we have a portfolio of over UK 1,000 stores, and our retail estate has grown by nearly 200 stores over the last ten years.
“We typically open more than 20 new stores each year, creating many new jobs and contributing to the growth of local economies.
“At the same time, we continually review the retail experience offered to our customers and have always made a small number of store closures every year, as local shopping patterns change and shop leases expire.”
Retailers have been feeling the pinch since the pandemic while shoppers are cutting back on spending due to soaring inflation.
High energy costs and a shift to shopping online after the pandemic are also taking a toll and many high street shops have struggled to keep going.
Yesterday, Le Pain Quotidien shut nine of its ten bakeries after falling into administration.
The move has left 250 out of a job, in another blow to the hospitality sector.
But some high street stores have plans to expand including Poundland.
We’ve previously listed all the shops closing down in July including Argos and Iceland.