Quality is still key as retailers brave the CV storm

“Have courage, but don’t take risks”
Scotland’s oldest delicatessen and Italian wine merchant, Valvona & Crolla, has taken the approach of being proactive, rather than reactive.

After closing its retail shops, cafes, restaurants and carry-out services, the company has unsurprisingly seen an uplift in online orders, with an increase in everyday and store cupboard ingredients – and it’s 00 flour that’s proving to be most popular.

“We have a long established delivery service, which has helped us keep on top of the change in pace,” said V&C’s Mary Contini. “Although deliveries have been interrupted, we had anticipated an increase in trade and had already bought extra stock. Our top-selling foods are still our V&C branded and specially selected products that we have stocked for generations, including pasta, fresh fruit and veg, Valvona & Crolla roasted coffee and San Marzano tinned tomatoes.

“We have also seen more customers sending food parcels to family and friends as a way of staying in touch, and we’re offering ‘stay at home’ parcels with ready-cooked meals from our chefs.”

When it comes to restocking, V&C is in constant contact with its suppliers, and chooses to wait for products to re-enter the market rather than opting for inferior ingredients in their place.

And of course, the business couldn’t continue without its staff, customers and suppliers.

Staff have been retrained in health and safety, and new measures have been implemented: hand-washing takes place every 15 minutes; staff work and eat in separate sections; work areas are cleaned constantly; and extra uniforms and gloves have been provided.

“Every business is facing the same challenges at the moment, and our priority is to ensure a safe working environment for our team, and to continue delivering the best food and drinks to our customers,” Mary said.

“We are calling our elderly clients and responding to any requests as best we can. People want familiarity under stressful situations, and we try to support them. We are sending food to local food banks, and we have offered our staff food at cost price so they don’t have to worry about shortages elsewhere.

“Every day we get support from our customers and friends. Our suppliers have been unilaterally supportive and have gone out of their way to ease the strain on the business.

“To other businesses: have courage, but don’t take risks – and keep safe.”

“We will keep going for as long as we can”
A few weeks into the UK-wide lockdown, retailers across the country are continuing to experience a high demand for a variety of products. While fresh items such as bread, meat, eggs, vegetables and milk, are all flying off the shelves, even products that would normally be slow-movers, such as cereal, are now selling out, as Katie Westwood, marketing manager of Cobbs Farm Co, noted.

“We have daily deliveries of most fresh produce, but eggs are in high demand – almost as soon as we receive a delivery they are sold out, and we’re struggling to restock them as quickly,” Katie said. “Pasta and flour are two other lines we just cannot get enough of at the minute. We have had to put a limit in place of two items per product (not including weighed goods), so that everybody gets fair access. We work with small suppliers, and a few of these have begun closing now too, but we will keep going for as long as we can and there’s a community to feed.”

As with most companies, Cobbs Farm Co is working hard to adapt to the ever-changing circumstances – but offering sustainable services is key.

“Online orders and deliveries are a work in progress. Initially we had hoped to offer local deliveries, but we were overwhelmed with interest and didn’t anticipate the high demand – logistically, it wasn’t a service we could keep up with.

“Instead, we’re going to offer a click-and-collect service online. Whilst we are finalising the system, customers can, ‘call and collect’ from our farm shops. Again, this has had a huge demand and it’s by no means ideal, but we felt that it was important to offer this additional service.

“We’re adhering to government guidelines in the farm shops: we have a maximum of 10 customers at once; we ask that they avoid touching items they don’t intend to purchase and adhere to 2m social distancing from other customers and our staff. We’re also having Perspex screens custom-built at our till areas – these will serve to further protect our customers and staff.”

“Online sales have grown massively”
Whilst companies are having to cease some operations and services, this hasn’t stopped them from being innovative.

“In the past, we’ve sold vouchers, event tickets and subscription hampers on our website,” Stephen Fleming, owner of George & Joseph Cheesemongers, said. “We took a decision a couple of weeks ago to accelerate plans to start selling cut pieces of cheese and other products. We got the shop up and running in a day or so, and started offering a ‘self isolation care pack’, consisting of cheeses, bread, chutney, crackers and (optionally) wine or beer. Within about two minutes of putting this online, we had sales coming in.”

Whilst the company has seen about a 20% drop in shop sales – which Stephen noted is mostly owing to its one-in-one-out policy that has reduced customer numbers – the growth in online sales has made up for it, with a 200% increase on a normal week.

“Over the last fortnight, we’ve seen our online sales grow massively. We’ve had to reduce our opening hours in the shop to focus on the online orders, but we’re still trading six days a week. 

“We started offering free local delivery of online orders, contactless to the doorstep, for people who are self-isolating. We’ve had great feedback on the doorstep delivery service, many people sending thank you emails and messages.”