Year's supply of camping stoves sold out in Portlaoise army surplus shop

Storm Éowyn weather warnings caused the Laois store of the Army Surplus Warehouse to sell their whole year's supply of gas stoves in a pre-storm buyout.

The store in Portlaoise Retail Park for the first time had a queue outside their doors before it opened on Thursday morning before the storm hit. 

They sold 520 of their unique single hob 'briefcase' countertop stoves, along with over 3,000 bottles of camping gas and and estimated 200 backpack stoves, and about 2,000 emergency lights.

Across the four branches of the Irish business, over 1,500 of the briefcase stoves were all sold out.

Portlaoise manager John said "it was like the end of the world was happening" with the queue.

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The Cork family business owner Noel Curtin told the Leinster Express / Laois Live that they are out of stocks of stoves now for the coming summer.

"We are out of stock now for summer barbecues and camping. We get these stoves made and sell them all year round, they are our own brand, they are priced very reasonably at €23. We got our year's supply in autumn for our four shops and there is a very long lead time to manufacture more," he said.

"It's not a windfall for us. We didn't jack the price or capitalise on the storm. There's no Oasis dynamic pricing here. It will increase our weekly turnover but not our annual turnover. We were the same in Covid, we always sold masks for no more than €1," he said.

He said that the Met Éireann weather warning system caused the pre-storm rush on stoves, a day before the storm hit.

"The colour coding weather warnings have put legs on these things. We normally get a business surge after a power outage, not before," Mr Curtin said.

The other shops are in Graiguecullen in Carlow, Killarney in Kerry and the founding store in Middleton, Cork opened 30 years ago. Noel's wife and daughters now run the business with him along with local staff.

"In the west we assume we will have no power in storms. But Portlaoise of all areas, had the most electrical faults. It's mostly fixed up in Killarney but I see around Portlaoise on Powercheck there's still 16 or 18 ESB bases out," he said.