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Majestic shuts Calais store

This week Majestic announced the closure of its Calais wine store with the loss of 20 staff. The store, which had done so much for the booze cruise to France, became unviable when true duty free shopping was introduced following Brexit.

Historically the very low duty in France meant that the UK duty of £2.23 a bottle could be avoided. When the UK was part of the EU there were no limits on the amount of wine that could be brought back to the UK for personal consumption. However new limits of 18L of still wine (24 bottles) and 9L of sparkling wine (12 bottles) are now all that is allowed per person.

Before Brexit, the two Majestic stores in Calais brought in £10m a year adding £1m to the bottom line. But now Majestic has deemed the stores to be “no longer commercially viable”, despite reaffirming its commitment to Calais back in September 2020.