The Impact
Coronavirus made a huge impact on the launch of our new business. With the UK Government announcing the first lockdown in March 2020, along with the rest of the world, everything came to a halt. With employers being instructed to get employees to work from home, the demand for a workplace refreshment offering was almost non-existent. Our orders got delayed and we suddenly found ourselves very quiet.
Staying Positive
We decided to take a positive approach to the pause and use it to our advantage. We wanted to be ready to hit the ground running for when ‘normality’ resumed with an amazing all-encompassing offering. An offering that customers wanted but didn’t know existed.
Facilities managers and alike have been looking for a canteen alternative following the closure of their existing facility due to the pandemic and cost-cutting exercises. They have also been looking for new ways to make the return to work look attractive and enticing to their employees. So keeping positive and focused was easy and exciting for us. We spent time researching what employees wanted and looked for within the office and workplace environment, it turns out great coffee and fresh food are high on that list! We started to define our offering and develop two core solutions.
Micro Markets: an attractive, cost-effective solution for companies with 150+ employees
Workplace Refreshments: a regular fresh food delivery service.
Growing Our Team
Taking this positive approach to a ‘bad situation’ surprisingly allowed us to grow! In May 2020 we took on Jamie-Leigh James as our Marketing Apprentice, who also made good use of the pandemic halt to complete her apprenticeship. In March 2021 we employed Rachel Davenport as our first Operator to deliver our first project win and Robert Bullas as our Maintenance Engineer.
We also purchased a second unit to enable us to expand our office space and storage facilities further down the line.
A Fresh New Make Over
We also decided that now was the right time to relaunch our website. Putting the customer journey at the forefront of our minds, we worked with a great team to plan, design, and build a new user-friendly website. As well as building our mobile app for our customers to use, and creating our video. So, if you don’t have time to browse our site or if you want to show team members what we do quickly then take a look at our short video, created by Sam Lindley Photography!
