Grant helps meat website rack up orders
THERE’S nothing like a crisis to make you move a little faster. Cornish butchers M&W Meats had supplied pubs and restaurants for more than 30 years but when lockdown forced the industry to close, M&W’s long-term plans to launch a website were hastily speeded up.
Claire Myatt, who runs the business with her husband Dean and their son Dino, says: ‘Our wholesale business was initially flat out due to people panic-stocking their fridges and freezers, but our catering arm which delivered to butchers who supplied pubs and restaurants lost a lot of business. So we decided to get a move on with launching our website.’ After a lot of hard work, Meatsupermarket.com was launched at the start of April and, thanks to a boost in publicity from DMGT’s £3,000 advertising grant, has been racking up sales – alongside some glowing reviews.
‘We still need to give it a bit more of a push and get more customers, but the advertising really helped,’ Claire says.
With the reopening of the hospitality industry next month alongside the two-metre rule being cut to one, Claire hopes that things can quickly recover for Cornwall, which is heavily reliant on the tourism industry. ‘Our business is really going to pick up again and I think it’s going to be the making of Cornwall, particularly as there are several months of summer left,’ she says.
‘If they weren’t going to be allowed to open then a lot of businesses wouldn’t have been able to survive.’
Claire is planning to keep the website going even once the lockdown is lifted.
She says: ‘A lot of people tried online shopping for the first time during lockdown and will continue to do so afterwards, as it’s a great product, delivered chilled straight to your door and there’s absolutely no need for queuing.’