We’ve had to do a lot of thinking on our feet through this experience. After losing 70% of our business overnight at the start it made us consider the parts that we could really make work and where there was potential to actually extend our offering. So we created Edge Mart, which would also stock fresh bread, flour, eggs – all the things that people were struggling to get hold of at the big supermarkets – that we could run alongside a takeaway service and online ordering. It really kept us going through the lockdown.

I think the key in the beginning is to keep things simple. Don’t overload yourself by trying to offer the same complicated menu you might have had before. We’ve stripped our food menu right back to just a few items that we get in fresh every day from local suppliers. It’s all good quality and sales are growing. It made me realise that before all of this we were spending so much time on food prep to fulfil a menu. I had always thought about the things that we should be doing differently but didn’t have time to implement the changes. This has actually given us the time to stand back and analyse our business more thoroughly. Which were the bits that were making the most money? Like most businesses now we are on a knife edge and to survive we know we’ve got to be lean and make some difficult decisions.
 

‘Local’ is now really important in the perception of what people want. We have been using local suppliers more than doing things here as we still have some staff furloughed, which again was essential to survive as a business, but this means that we are now supporting more local businesses. Local radio has been so useful for us as a marketing tool – they have become the community voice. We’ve also realised the power of an offer. You might not make that much money out of it but it’s generating new customers, which is so important going forward. It’s all about getting money in the bank.

This whole experience has made us re-evaluate our offering – we are going to make the Edge Mart a permanent fixture. So we’re converting one of our smaller areas into a retail offering with lovely local produce – with tea and coffee as the stars naturally. I think having a retail offering alongside everything else we do will really help with our bottom line, which is going to be key to survival in the coming months.