Popular Italian food shop in Banbury thanks its loyal customers as it shuts its doors

The Italian Larder relaunched in 2019, but the lockdowns and cost of living crisis, as well as increased importation costs from Italy, have forced the staff at the popular shop to suddenly close its doors.

The business on Banbury’s High Street has been the go to shop in town for anyone wanting that taste of the Mediterranean cuisine, with the shop selling authentic Italian products from pesto sauce to prosciutto and everything in between.

Owner of the Italian Larder, Vincenzo Mancini, said: "The shop is closing for a number of reasons, one of them being that they have to do some refurbishment work to the property above the shop.

"However, the main reason for the closure is because the prices of the products are increasing and importing everything from Italy has become very expensive, which means that I have to put the prices up, and I don’t want to do that to our customers.

"Due to the cost of living crisis, our sales have been down. Our Banbury customers have always been very supportive and lovely, but it's still a big risk to invest in new stock at this hard financial time."

Vincenzo told this newspaper that there is a chance the shop will reopen once the refurbishment work has been completed, but he and the other staff will have to consider the economic climate at the time to see if reopening would financially make sense.