‘Difficult to find staff’: Brexit and rising bills put paid to much-loved Greek deli in London Fields

Isle of Olive was hit hard by new import and export regulations. Photograph: Isle of Olive

The Isle of Olive deli on Ada Street sadly shut its doors forever last month after 11 years.

The Hackney business was a favourite in the area for authentic varied Greek food and for their wine-tasting and supper club events.

Gregoris, who owned the business with Paulina, outlined the huge challenges that forced closure, from the combination of the events of Covid, Brexit and the Cost of Living Crisis.

The business took a slight hit when Covid limited the deli’s sales to online.

Gregoris told the Citizen: “We were fortunate because as a food business we were able to keep on operating and also the online sales at the time were really good.”

However, Brexit had a huge affect on the business.

“Brexit meant that for every invoice issued to us by a producer, there was a customs fee to be paid to agents in Greece and then another fee to the agent in the UK for the import declarations,” Gregoris explained.

It meant the deli owners had to start ordering in larger quantities, and cut their range of items.

It also forced them to stop selling to EU countries because the invoice receipts were too high.

New legislation required for businesses in the EU also made them to switch to wholesalers.

“All of this went against our goal as a business,” he said. “Our vision has always been to be able to work directly with small artisan producers and source unique products from Greece we could sell for reasonable prices.

“We have seen inflation skyrocket and energy prices have increased by three or four times. It has also become very difficult to find staff for basic jobs like service or running the till.

“The costs of the products themselves have increased as well because the small producers are facing challenges of their own.

“Our prices would have to rise so much that our products would now be accessible to only a very small number of people.”

The space will be taken over by the distinguished chef Oded Oren, a friend of Paulina and Gregoris, whose own cookery has been described as “verging on genius” by food critic Jay Rayner.

Oren, who runs a popular Dalston restaurant bearing his surname, plans to retain the site’s Mediterranean legacy.

Many fans of the deli showed their support when The Isle of Olive announced its closure on Instagram.

One comment reads: “You created a wonderful and completely genuine store. Sadly missed around here these days.”

Another said: “Really sad to hear this news. We absolutely loved our supper club events in the shop – wonderful produce and people. Wishing you all the best in the future.”

Gregoris said: “The highlight for us has to be the many evenings where we were hosting our culinary or wine-tasting events, where people from all over London would swarm to our shop to taste something new, learn about the food culture of Greece and meet and exchange opinions with other interesting people.”