Cream tea deliveries help to perk up households

Daily Telegraph Reporter SEARCHES for cream tea deliveries have increased 750 per cent during lockdown, analysis of data from Google Trends has shown.

Other popular terms included Nando’s, takeaways and cakes, and whether Royal Mail delivers on Saturdays.

Small businesses are benefiting from the surge in online delivery requests for cream tea, including 23-year-old Victoria Austin, who owns Homemade by Victoria in Northamptonshire.

She said the deliveries were helping make up for losses from cancelled catering for weddings and other events due to the pandemic.

“I started doing a few boxes here and there just to see,” she told BBC News.

“They’ve always been quite popular but never as popular as this. I don’t know why it is such a big thing but everyone’s loving it.”

Claire Dinwiddy, from Brewood Staffordshire, had a cream tea as a surprise treat for her 40th birthday.

She said: “It was really nice. We were meant to be away with all my family for a long weekend glamping, but obviously it’s all not going ahead so my friends did it to cheer me up.

“A cream tea is something I’ve never had before as a birthday gift and it’s really lovely not having to make anything yourself.”

A spokesman for Rodda’s, the Cornish clotted cream business, suggested the popularity may be to do with a wish for “home comforts”, adding: “A cream tea is one of those special moments, conjuring up fond memories of time spent with loved ones.

“Over the last few weeks we’ve seen so many people taking to the kitchen making scones, teaching the younger members of the family how to bake, and more importantly, how to enjoy a delicious cream tea.

“With a little help from technology, we’ve also seen people enjoy these moments online, staying connected with loved ones.”