I had a first this week.
A bit of background: We are currently putting together our Christmas catalogue and generally we like to meet our prospective new suppliers before we do business with them. This is normal for many of you – and I employ 5 sales people who do the same for us i.e. drive round the country visiting customers and prospective customers. (more…)
I was slightly surprised to see the headline article on the Speciality Food Magazine’s weekly newsletter trumpet: “Indies: Stop Mimicking Loyalty Schemes”. It turns out that this was a point of view of one person keen to push his own webinar, rather than an industry opinion as a whole. However as the debate is now “out there”, let’s consider the pros and cons. (more…)
I have been on my travels again the last couple of weeks to the ISM Show in Cologne and a Bord Bia event in Ireland. Both gave a good indication of how the economy is performing with relation to speciality food on a European level. Since then the news has broken about the mess that Greece’s economy is in, so we wait to see what impact that will have. (more…)
I have just come back from Farm & More Conference, where there were record numbers of delegates and a thriving trade show alongside it. There was a general feeling of buoyancy about last year, despite the recession, which would have been even more optimistic had many of the retail outlets not been hit hard by the snow at the start of January. There were stories of new farm shops that had reached over £1million turnover in their first year and several more established shops now trading at £3-4million. (more…)
As I write there is more snow forecast for this week – let’s hope not! We and other businesses are counting the cost of the terrible two weeks since the New Year. Whilst some retailers have benefitted from the bad weather by being the only local shop that customers could get to, the majority, I suspect, have lost varying amounts of money in 2010. Even Tesco has admitted losing £250m in revenue and Ocado were 5% down. I think independents generally will be in more deficit than this. However, let’s put it behind us, look forward, hope for better weather and that customers who haven’t been out much will have more cash in their pockets to spend in our tills.
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Well what a shambolic start to the year! It has not really been the weather for running a distribution business. It is the first week back after what seemed a very short break, and all hell is let loose. Some shops having to close for a day or two due to no staff and others having to close due to no customers. Wholesalers like us trying to move heaven and earth to get customer’s deliveries out, drivers battling through the snow only to arrive at the farm shop half an hour after they have shut early for the day! (more…)
A little late this week, but I blame Christmas for that – where did all those customers come from?!
We heard last week that Rumwell Farm Shop, Taunton is the first shop in the UK to receive The Genuine Own And Local (GOAL) certificate from the Farmers’ Retail & Markets Association (FARMA).
The accreditation is awarded to shops selling their own farm produce, (more…)
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed I missed a week last week, I think for the first time since I started! Unfortunately I was struck down with the dreaded swine flu caught on the plane on the way back from Shanghai. But, of course, the Chinese have not got swine flu in their nation, they say. Yeah right! If you haven’t had the illness yet I do recommend you get vaccinated particularly (more…)
I am writing this week a few days after coming back from Hong Kong and China with a UKTI trade mission. To be privileged enough to visit the hot-bed of the world’s economy was an inspiring (and in some ways challenging) experience. With the massive growth in the Chinese economy has come, both a plethora of designer shops around each corner and also a new interest in western food, which funnily enough was the reason I was there (more…)
I had the pleasure of visiting Ireland last week, both to visit existing gourmet food customers and see some potential new ones. Whilst there I was very interested to draw comparisons between the UK and Irish market. First of all I was shocked at the depth of the recession over there. After many boom years, largely due (more…)
