The biggest change is that we now do deliveries 3 times a week to local villagers, in an attempt to enable people to have fresh produce regularly, whilst enabling us to stay in complete control of how we engage with people. Orders are taken via email and every Monday, Thursday and Saturday the truck is loaded up and we head round the village, armed with gloves and hand sanitiser.
This approach not only gets fresh produce to the village, but also provides a point of contact for many of the older folk that are self isolating and don't get any further than their back doors and gardens and so have minimal opportunity for face-to-face contact, although at a safe distance.
When we can, we also offer produce to the neighbouring villages of Polsham and Panborough and they have designated people who come and collect from outside the barn.
With regards to our local businesses, the village tearooms is offering a delivery service for indulgent treats such as cream teas and afternoon teas and the take-up has been incredible with their demand for salad trays as a result increasing dramatically!
Although our salad leaves only form a very small part of the platter, for recent VE day celebrations, their order was their largest to date, with over 110 bookings they needed 15 living salad trays - over 3.5kg of leaves!! This presented the opportunity for us to provide a selection of different colours and varieties, which looked bonny in the sunshine.
Change is always difficult and when combined with uncertainty can be a challenge, but now several weeks down the line it the way we work has become what they seemed to have named the 'new normal'. Like all of us, we just need to adapt our ways to do things different and the best we can to keep safe and others safe, but with fresh food locally. Where there is a will there is a way and at the end of each day I thank my lucky stars that I live where I do, have the job that I have and that we are both fit and healthy.
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