Ikea sold over 1m meatballs last year

Ikea last year sold more than 1m meatballs at its Dublin store and yesterday predicted it would have an even more successful 2014.

The Swedish furnishing giant confirmed 1.027m meatballs were sold at its Ballymun store in spite of the firm withdrawing a batch for sale in response to the horsemeat scare in February.

A spokeswoman said that if you were to line up all the meatballs sold at the store last year, they would “equal to 41.8km which would take you from Ikea Ballymun to Bray on the M50”.

Last year, 2.3m shoppers spent an average €2m a week in the store as revenues increased to €103m and pre-tax profits almost doubled to €5.8m.

Peter Steenberg, the Danish-born store manager at Ikea in Dublin, yesterday confirmed the company is seeking to identify sites in Ireland for a second store.

He said: “Ikea are committed to expanding in the Irish market and have been identifying sites in Ireland for a potential second store. However, we have no further plans to confirm at the current time.”

The firm’s Dublin outlet — which is equivalent in space to five-and-a-half soccer pitches — contains 9,000 home furnishings, a 550-seater restaurant, a food hall and creche, along with 1,850 car parking spaces.

As well as the meatballs, the spokeswoman said Ikea sold 88,000 hotdogs and over 67,000 ice-creams.

She said some of Ikea’s most popular items at its Dublin store last year were the Expedit shelving unit, the Hemnes day bed, the Patrull corner protectors, the Duktig children’s kitchen, and Glimma tea lights, the latter of which sold about 5.3m.