We thoroughly enjoyed getting to the Farm Shop and Deli show last week after the covid hiatus and what a show it was.

The first thing that struck us was the energy and excitement with all of us finally getting to meet face-to-face and share our experiences. It was inspiring to hear how you tackled the challenges of the past couple of years. Through those difficulties many of you rose to those challenges and expanded into better options with new ideas. These solutions are ideal examples of things that we like to share in our community which we will be doing more of in our newsletters and online. There are many lessons to learn that are really delivering to bottom line profit.

We also identified some common themes across shops and suppliers alike. Success has come from focusing on the service proposition, finding new ways to get products to your customers and making better use of online technology as well as social media to do that. You are finding great efficiencies and seeing the benefit of marketing. There has also been even more focus on being eco-conscious which we are all, quite rightly, embracing so much more.

Seeing all the new products at the show just demonstrates how robust and dynamic the food industry is. Having survived the most difficult of times, we felt the show was able to now celebrate and move forward. There were so many great products to see and try with a host of them winning the various categories of prizes up for grabs. Congratulations to everyone, for both entering and also winning.

After our discussions with you on the stand, it was clear to us that there were opportunities for our services to support the ongoing work you are doing to connect with your customers. As a long-standing promotions agency we have a large corporate client base who are looking for personalised promotions to offer their local customers across the country and what better promotion than something from a local farm shop or deli? So, if you tell us what offers are coming up, we can connect two clients together for mutually beneficial opportunities. Any promotions you offer will be managed to your operational needs and there are no fees or hidden charges, just a desire on our part to pair you up.

We also recognised at the show the possibility of us facilitating offers from a whole host of wonderful suppliers giving you product at even better value and we are talking to many of the people we met. If there are specific offers or products that you are interested in then once again get in touch so that we can focus our conversations in the right direction.

We are already hearing from those of you who signed up at the show and if anyone else wants to benefit from this opportunity today then just get in touch.

Most of all being at the show endorsed our thoughts around building a speciality retail community which shares benefits across all parties and being able to facilitate that through our expertise and technology seems a great way of moving this industry forward. We look forward to working with you and hearing what more we can do to improve your business.