Lunan Bay Farm
How has the Coronavirus pandemic impacted your business and distribution?
The current coronavirus pandemic has hugely impacted our business. Most of our asparagus had been presold to restaurants so we had to pivot to new markets. Luckily the response from small independent retailers has been amazing! We hope that these new routes will remain an outlet once the restaurants reopen. It’s not yet clear what the financial impact on our bottom line will be as we are just going into the season now but we are upbeat.
Later in the year when our goat meat season starts, we may face a similar issue but we have already had a number of inquiries so we are hopeful that it restaurants have not reopened we can find new local markets.
Daya Feldwick (GFN Ambassador)
My experience of C19 lockdown confirms the argument in favour of small local shops and how they reacted much better than supermarkets. Being independent / community-run, they have demonstrated greater flexibility as they were able to respond much faster to the changes and their community’s needs.
I was super impressed with the Penicuik Storehouse, how fast they organised and coordinated the collections and deliveries around town. While people were saying they could not get any slots for the ‘big four’, the Storehouse staff & volunteers were working hard in the shop, stocking up, packing, and out delivering groceries every day. They also had a table outside with a plastic screen (at least 2 weeks before supermarkets even started using them!), enabling people to collect orders or make a purchase without having to enter the small shop.
The supermarkets were slow to react ; first running out of food then overstocking and wasting, also waiting for weeks to receive orders from some distant head office and then take time to implement across the numerous branches, with staff confused, abused and overworked, often on short-term, low paid contracts.
This is something we need to remember and demand change to the food system for the future.
How has the Coronavirus pandemic impacted your business and distribution?
The current coronavirus pandemic has hugely impacted our business. Most of our asparagus had been presold to restaurants so we had to pivot to new markets. Luckily the response from small independent retailers has been amazing! We hope that these new routes will remain an outlet once the restaurants reopen. It’s not yet clear what the financial impact on our bottom line will be as we are just going into the season now but we are upbeat.
Later in the year when our goat meat season starts, we may face a similar issue but we have already had a number of inquiries so we are hopeful that it restaurants have not reopened we can find new local markets.
Daya Feldwick (GFN Ambassador)
My experience of C19 lockdown confirms the argument in favour of small local shops and how they reacted much better than supermarkets. Being independent / community-run, they have demonstrated greater flexibility as they were able to respond much faster to the changes and their community’s needs.
I was super impressed with the Penicuik Storehouse, how fast they organised and coordinated the collections and deliveries around town. While people were saying they could not get any slots for the ‘big four’, the Storehouse staff & volunteers were working hard in the shop, stocking up, packing, and out delivering groceries every day. They also had a table outside with a plastic screen (at least 2 weeks before supermarkets even started using them!), enabling people to collect orders or make a purchase without having to enter the small shop.
The supermarkets were slow to react ; first running out of food then overstocking and wasting, also waiting for weeks to receive orders from some distant head office and then take time to implement across the numerous branches, with staff confused, abused and overworked, often on short-term, low paid contracts.
This is something we need to remember and demand change to the food system for the future.