Budget Grocery Store Selling All Items For 36 Cents Can't Keep Up With Demand And Briefly Forced To Close

EDIT: After just one day of being shut down, easyFoodStore announced this morning that the store were back up and running. There is no word yet on whether the 36-cent prices remain in place.

Imagine going grocery shopping for tonight's dinner and finding your total bill for a dozen ingredients comes to less than $5. We haven't traveled back in time; this is a reality for shoppers who entered easyFoodstore, a grocery chain that opened several days ago in North London where every item (mostly canned and dried goods) costs a mere 36 cents (25 pence).The downside? The concept was so popular that easyFoodstore was forced to shut down two days after opening because it ran out of stock.

EasyFoodstore is the brainchild of Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who founded the low-cost airline EasyJet.  A whole range of canned, dried, and frozen groceries were available to customers, including coffee, tomato soup, SpaghettiOs, cake, and pizza. The store opened with the slogan, "No expensive brands. Just food honestly priced." The 36-cent price limit was only available through the end of the month, but grocery prices would have only inflated incrementally after the initial month-long discount.

But apparently, easyFoodstore did not correctly calculate the balance of supply and demand because it will be closed through the end of the month. When the store reopens, customers should expect pricier goods.

"It demonstrates that the demand is there and the concept is valid," Richard Shackleton, EasyGroup's director of communications, told CNBC. "At the end of the month assess how much our 25 pence opening offer was worth and what the price point really needs to be in terms of going forward."