CITC Supermarket shoppers are being asked to purchase their essentials in advance in preparation for the store’s closure next week for its major power upgrade.

The supermarket will open at 8am and close at 1pm on Saturday, May 27. The store will remain closed next week on Monday, May 29 and Tuesday, May 30 and is scheduled to re-open on Wednesday, May 31.

CITC food group manager Jason Burgess said the main reason behind the upgrade is that “we have outgrown the existing main switchboard and for those that have been around since the supermarket started to be built back in 1998, there has been significant changes and upgrades to the supermarket complex in general over the past 25 years so there was a need to do these upgrades”.

“Obviously we would prefer to still continue to trade but with electricity it makes it virtually impossible to do, as we change over everything and are confident that the two full days we are closed will be all that’s needed to complete the changeover,” Burgess said.

Whilst there is never a good time to do an upgrade of such a large scale, planning for the power upgrade operation has been in the works for almost a year.

“It’s not just about getting in new equipment and changing it over, we have put a lot of planning into this and we also have to have the expertise on island to make it happen, so we have had to ensure we have the right personnel to get the job done which we are confident we have now which for the most part is all qualified CITC staff.”

The new power upgrade will also allow the company to further upgrade areas within the supermarket to enhance the customers overall shopping experience.

Burgess said there will be some exciting news shortly about changes in the supermarket more so around the fresh and frozen departments which will commence later this year.

The customers will soon start to see immediate changes as the supermarket starts re-laying the dry food parts of the store in preparation for these upgrades.

“Hopefully that does not disrupt the shopping experience too much while we do this over the next few weeks.”

All the other CITC stores will be open for normal trading hours and will be stocked up as best as can be to ensure customers can purchase all their daily needs from those stores whilst the supermarket is closed.

“We do apologise for the inconvenience and we have endeavoured to get the message out to all our customers both retail and wholesale and we look forward to exciting times ahead after these upgrades have been completed,” said Burgess.

Established in 1999, CITC Supermarket is the largest supermarket/food outlet in the Cook Islands which offers a large variety of food and beverage choices for retail and wholesale customers.