‘Don’t forget us’ plead greengrocers as shoppers return to supermarkets
INDEPENDENT OUTLETS NEED YOUR SUPPORT
INDEPENDENT grocers in Cleethorpes are hoping people will keep shopping local - and to remember the hard work they put in over the lockdown to serve local communities With life beginning slowly to edge back to a new type of ‘normal’ there e are fears that many customers have e already slipped back into old super- market shopping habits.
In the early days of the first lockdown, it was local grocers and independent shops that worked around the clock to ensure the elderly and vulnerable were able to get the food they needed if they couldn’t book a supermarket shopping slot. Many had to conjure up a home delivery service overnight when they might not have offered that service previously.
George Woolliss, 29, of Robsons Florist and Greengrocer said: “The initial boom has definitely gone now, we’re seeing a lot fewer new faces these days.
“In the first days of the first lockdown it was crazy, we couldn’t really keep up with the demand and really it just came out of nowhere when you think about it.
“We had to massively expand the delivery service overnight, there was a lot of long hours and hard work put into getting that out there.
“We tried to help where we can too, we were doing free deliveries for NHS workers because they had enough on their plate at that time as it was. “Things have started to switch back now though I think and you can tell that more and more people that we were seeing semi-regularly have started to slip back into going to the supermarket and things like that. “We said during the busiest time that we hoped we’d be able to keep 20 per cent of the new faces that we’d seen come in and we’d have been happy.
“Counting it up I think we’ve just about managed that but it is those old habits creeping back in as things start to go back to being a bit more normal. “We’re just hoping the catering side of things will pick up now with the pubs and restaurants opening again, that is where the balancing act will be for us in the next months I think.” All the data suggested that most of Britain’s independent grocers had a sales boost in 2020 as Covid travel restrictions and working from home
prompted consumers to shop on local high streets instead of city centres.
Research from Barclaycard published last December showed that spending at independent food and drink shops, including off-licences, butchers and bakeries, jumped 28.6 per cent in 2020 compared with a year earlier.
The same data showed that overall consumer spending fell 7.1 per cent but spending on essential goods such
as groceries rose by 4.1 per cent compared with 2019, non-essential spending fell 11.9 per cent. The experience of our local grocers though suggests that this surge might be tailing off. Leon Revill, 47, only took on fruit and veg shop Four Seasons at the bottom end of Sea View Street at the end of 2020 having previously been involved in the trade in one way or another for around 25 years.
Leon said: “We were due to open a shop in Ingoldmells if I’m honest and it was right at the start of the first lockdown when this all started.
“Luckily for us we were able to get out of that one because I told the guys who took it on afterwards that without the summertime holiday trade down there it was going to fail, and unfortunately it did. “We saw this place come up and jumped at the opportunity. It seemed like a great place to set up and to get stuck in to the local community.
“I’ve loved it so far, don’t get me wrong it has been really hard work at times but things are starting to get there for us now and I can start planning for what comes next rather than just trying to keep it ticking over.
“We’ve had a lot of the customers come back who remember the shop as it was before and that has been really nice, too; to have them give us a chance and then to see them come back.
“We’ve also had some new people coming down to try this sort of thing out for the first time. We’re seeing a lot of young mums who are bringing the kids with them and we get a chance to talk to the kids about fruit and veg which is n nice.
“That is something you can’t get at the bigger shops, that bit of chat and an education if we can give it to too.”
Four Seasons has been an active part of the community since its establishment, working hard to support local people by offering fr free deliveries in the area where th they can.
Owner Leon is passionate about n nothing from his shop going to w waste and works with local chariti ties to ensure that none of the produce in his shop ever has to go in the bin.
Over the festive period the shop donated Christmas trees to local care homes across the area and has also raised money for a number of local charities through events and giveaways.
When owner Leon talks about his plans for the future it is all rooted in establishing the shop as a part of the community and a place for people to use in conjunction with other independent shops in the area.
He said: “I hope we manage to keep some of the new faces that have come down. I know we’re always going to lose a few but it would be such a shame to see them go.
“I want them to stay and be a part of the community here, that is what these sort of shops are all about, it is about people and connecting and being part of something.
“In the future I’d like some benches down here and an area that people can sit and have a chat and a cuppa; somewhere they can take the weight off if they’ve been to a few different shops to get their local produce.
“We’re careful and we know what the shops around us are selling and we try to complement that rather than competing with them. “It is already a community of local shops and independent retailers here and I suppose we all hope that people don’t forget who helped them during the pandemic.”
“When we can all go back to something like normal I think we need to ask whether we should go back to the way things were before or whether we can carrying on doing something new.”