STENHOUSEMUIR has emerged as Irn Bru heaven after a shopkeeper revealed he’s sitting on a stash of almost 5,000 litres of the full sugar product.
Jawad Javed’s stock of the pre-sugar tax drink is made up of 7,000 cans and 1,200 two-litre bottles of the irreplaceable juice.
Jawad, who runs Day Today Express in the town near Falkirk, is now preparing for a flood of customers after posting pictures of his haul on social media.
He has 2,000 cans and 400 two-litre bottles in the shop itself with a further 5,000 cans and 800 bottles in the storeroom, making a total of 4,700 litres.
The first photo, posted on Tuesday, showed rows and rows of the big bottles of orange nectar and was captioned: “We still have plenty Original Irn Bru (full sugar) 2 litres”, with a smiley face emoji.
And yesterday (WED) he did the same with piles of 330ml cans, with another snap to prove the sugar content of one tin was 38% of a person’s recommended daily sugar intake and therefore bona fide original recipe.
Thousands of comments flooded in from sugar-starved Scots who said they were going to make road trips to get their hands on the goods.
Ross Stewart even asked: “Can you get me a full crate please?”
Mark Milligan told the store: “See you on Sunday.”
Scott Kidd, from Glasgow, wrote: “Road trip to Alloa.”
Barrie Watson, also from Glasgow, said: “Falkirk isn’t that far.”
Jack Scott, from Perth, said: “Get on the prop run the night.”
Even Jenny Rose from Belfast was keen. She told Thomas Larmour: “Hop on the ferry.”
Claire Murray said: “This shop is like an hour away but it would be worth it.”
Kayleigh Wyllie from Crosshouse, East Ayrshire, asked: “Is it bad I’m considering a road trip?”
John Mooney added: “The holy grail of Bru.”
Speaking today (THURS), Jawad said: “It’s been flying off and people are buying crazy amounts.
“I found out my cash and carry had old Irn Bru in stock and a customer had been asking me about it.
“We put it on Facebook and it went viral. People have been coming from Fife, Glasgow and Edinburgh.”
There is no suggestion that Jawad is cashing in on his stock, having set prices for the cans at 59p and bottles at £1.59, both of them recommended retail prices.
A newly introduced UK sugar tax has affected store prices of drinks that contain more than 5g of sugar per 100ml.
With this in mind, Irn Bru changed their recipe in January, in time to avoid a hike in prices for their customers.
The company were met with a backlash from fans who claimed the new recipe was nowhere near as good.
A petition called “Hands off our Irn Bru” calling for the company to stick to the original recipe has now received over 50,000 signatures.
