A trip to our local garden centre, Baytree at Spalding, for essential pet supplies meant we were able to peek behind the scenes (observing proper social distancing of course) at their click and collect and delivery service.
The benefits of a large family mean that while almost all of the staff are on furlough leave, family members are working all hours to keep their 3 delivery vehicles and a steady stream of click and collect customers supplied.
"We got right down to having only 1 bag of multipurpose compost left last week, but just as that was sold the Westland lorry turned up and we were able to keep supplying, almost directly off the artic while it was unloaded," explained Nigel Wallis. " Our compost sales are almost on a par with our normal volumes for this tie of year, it's just been a lot more effort getting it to customers."
In the Pet department, open for Essential supplies, only 2 customers are allowed in at any one time, and sales have been up to 1/3rd of normal pet trading.
With the demand constantly growing other members of the team are being un-furloughed next week to get more people on the end of a phone taking orders from customers.