But have we changed the way we eat . Hopefully one of the positive outcomes of this is that people will buy more of our products locally. This is booths. Thank you, thats great. Lovely. With 28 Stores Across the north west, the family owned supermarket has an eventful few months. We were struggling as were many others to actually get hold of some really basic provisions. Coronavirus has had a huge impact. From customers queueing just to get inside, to staff struggling to keep the shelves stocked. It all started with things like toilet rolls and hand sanitiser, as youll remember. The fear of shortages meant that when covid 19 first hit, many of us started stockpiling. Fresh food started to become a challenge. Fresh food has recovered really quite quickly, and then we got into things like tins and packet. Back in march Grocery Sales hit an all time high, amounting to £10. 8 billion. Thats even higher than the christmas rush. And now, we are still buying more groceries than before. Injuly, sales were 14. 6 up on the same time last year. The market for non perishables did particularly well. In the first 12 weeks, we spent 38 more on dried pasta. Overall, did booths do quite well out of this . Its a mixed picture. Yes, we are selling more tins and packets of things, theres no doubt about that. There were ups and downs. And the ups were helped by the fact that supplies into supermarkets continued, in part because as a nation, we were still able to import food. We are in a much, much better place now than we were a few weeks ago. And perhaps a different place, too. A rise in home baking. We sell three kilogram flower. We never do that before. The pandemic seems to have had an impact on the types of food we want to buy. There are more core ingredients being bought, so people obviously spending more time in the kitchen creating for themselves. Within weeks of being locked down, a third more of us were using our time at home to cook from scratch. People have found the ability to bake again, so goodness knows what our waistlines are going to look like. Come on sue pritchard is leading an independent enquiry set up to help shape a more Sustainable Future for food and farming. What we seem to be learning is that people are appreciating the importance of food in their lives much more. They are enjoying eating together as a family if they are in a position to do so, and they are enjoying taking time over food or discovering it for the first time has brought a richness and a colour to their lives around the joy of food and the place of food that they had not necessarily known before. People are telling us that they dont want to give that up. How do you think the supermarkets performed 7 at the start, the supermarkets were caught out. But they did manage to pivot. It took a little while. They collaborated, worked together in ways that they have not done, not had to do, for decades, if ever, actually. And managed to recover from that position after a few weeks. For sue, the main reason so many supermarkets were caught out was because of the way they work with their suppliers. Its known as a just in time system. Meaning, most only have enough Storage Space for one days supply of fresh produce. Why has it been so appealing to supermarkets to have that system 7 its hugely cost effective. It means the risk of keeping stocks being held elsewhere, so you are not having to spend a lot of money on big warehouses or if you are not buying the products you are going to sell until you absolutely need them, you are able to manage cash flow. So its very efficient for the supermarkets but it just means that risk is held elsewhere in the system and we saw in corona that the suppliers, the producers and customers who are managing that risk. But supermarkets have had other risks theyve had to manage. One of the biggest, around safety. The safety of customers, of course, and the safety of staff too. Supermarket workers, in fact staff across the whole of the food industry, have been on the front line throughout the pandemic. Their work, so important to our health and well being that they are recognised as key workers. Isnt it slightly inevitable that notjust here but across the food chain, if you like, the importance of food, meant some people had to take risks to keep us fed . They absolutely did. If you think about the advice from the government at the time was if you can work from home, work from home. Clearly in a supermarket environment or a Food Production environment you cannot do that, so we did ask and we knew very consciously we were asking our people to put themselves at the forefront of the need to feed communities. So, one of the things we did is we made sure that we paid a bonus to our people who came into work because they were doing just that. At many stages of the supply chain, there have been risks to the people working to keep the rest of us fed. In Food Production, they have been particularly vulnerable, with significant outbreaks of the virus reported in food factories and processing plants where staff have long periods spent working closely together indoors. Farmers have been determined to stay afloat, safely. This is one of our fields of mint. This is a spanish variety that we grow. Morning. Good morning. Good orders today . This is Valley Produce in berkshire. Here, they grow, pick and pack vegetables and herbs for supermarkets and the Hospitality Industry. The majority of our staff are seasonal labour from various european countries, bulgaria, lithuania, latvia, romania. Just come here for money, for a better life. And thats it. I had a test before coming here. Everybody who came here with me has been tested for coronavirus. Tom is one of 26 bulgarians now living on site. Weve taken our guidance for the government and we have escaped the 14 day quarantine, theres a lot of people coming to work in the fields so we have had to hire in caravans, accommodation earlier than we normally have. Weve had to split them into two groups because they arrived at different times. Weve had to separate them in terms of their kitchen accommodation and their living accommodation. Tom has completed his period of isolation and is living in this caravan alongside a fellow worker. Where do you cook . In the kitchen over there. Its for all caravans. Its two kitchens in the back of the caravans. In common with many vegetable farms, this one has had to weather the ups and downs of the last few months. While the demand for Fresh Farm Produce for supermarket shelves has grown, the impact of lockdown on restaurants, cafes and takeaways has created real uncertainty. Its had a significant Financial Impact on our business just through loss of trade, loss of customers. We, overnight, lost about 40 45 of our weekly turnover, which as yet hasnt come back. During the three months of lockdown, we ate 352 million fewer meals out then we would normally. Trips to restaurants and cafes all but disappeared. Here in leicestershire, alan smith has built up a 475 strong herd, producing milk that he sells mostly into the hospitality supply chain. But, relying on demand from planes, trains and coffee shops meant he was in trouble. And like many farmers, was forced to pour milk down the drain. The last two or three months time has been absolutely dire. I dont think anybody in the dairy industry has ever known it as bad as it has been the last eight, ten weeks. Between april and may, the cost of the dairy industry was an estimated £28 million. We started milking around 3 30 this morning. The milk was being bottled straightaway after we milked. Alan has managed to refocus his business. On this farm, we have our own retail milk round. And turn it round. So the people of leicester today will be getting milk that was produced today to be delivered today, so they are getting milk that is less than 12 hours old. The amount of milk he is selling locally from these jersey cows has gone up by about 30 , and he gets a much better price for it than the milk he sells to the normal dairy contract. Its a way of securing income for the farm. We get paid all the time, we are getting regular payments, so it has really been quite a lifesaver. And, its been a lifesaver for his customers, too. I know that my milk is as fresh as you can get and also i dont have to go out there in this covid situation every day to get milk. Services like alans have sprung up across the country. Early into lockdown, some 3 Million People either ordered food from a local farm for the very first time orjoined a scheme to get a fresh vegetable box delivered. So have we developed new habits . Being able to talk to a farmer directly who deals with the cows first hand is a great feeling. Getting our local suppliers is really important. Having the daily conversations when its delivered. Alan has used word of mouth to drum up business. Others have gone digital, setting up Online Community forums, hoping that technology will help keep customers faithful. I set up deal delivers in the first week of lockdown and the Facebook Group got 2000 new members in a week and a half, and the website has now had maybe 15,000 visitors, but during peak lockdown it was getting 1000 visitors a day. So this is the local fish shop and they were so busy during lockdown with deliveries that they had to change all their trading hours, and i think the deliveries really saved them because all the restaurants that they were supplying closed. Now more than 100 businesses are using the platform. Many offering Home Deliveries for the first time. I would love to see more hyperlocal delivery websites across the uk. Weve got reigate, ashford, four heightons and even dulwich all using the same templates. Projects have sprung up across communities to serve the most basic need, helping families get any food at all. Peoples activism has started to mobilise around making sure that everybody has access to fresh, nutritious, affordable food, and that is new and i dont think that is going to go away. This supply centre is now a hub for 30 food banks across north london. At the beginning of this pandemic, when everybody was going out and panic buying, that wasnt an option for a lot of our families. Could you get me some of that pasta, please . Can i get loads of that spaghetti, please . We need the spaghetti the kids love a bolognese. A lot of the families that we are working with now, they are new to us. So theres a lot of families who have newly come into hardship as a result of the lockdown, a lot of people have lost theirjobs, a lot of people have been furloughed, so we are seeing an increase in the amount of food that we need to hand out. Some of this food has actually come from pubs and restaurants that werent actually able to open up. But individual donations have gone down. So people are not donating but, on the flipside of that, the good side, is that we had loads of companies that were not able to use the food that have given us food that we can now handout. Henry dimbleby is one of the founders of the restaurant chain, leon. He is heading a Government Commission review of our whole food and farming system. For him, the lessons of lockdown have been stark. About 4. 7 Million People in the early days of the virus could not access food, skipped meals, either because logistically they could not get it. But of those 4. 7 million, 1. 7million to 1. 8 million could not afford to buy the food that they needed and so skipped meals because they couldnt afford it. As we come out of the summer into autumn, as the furlough unrolls, in october, its clear to me that there will be people who find that actually do not have jobs to go back to and for those people, that food poverty, that Food Insecurity is going to rise. We are at the beginning of a very, very unequal time, in terms of our food system. Now, because we are no longer eating as many meals out, the hospitality sector is facing its own crisis. The most important thing for hospitality is to get the sector back on its feet. There is no Society Without hospitality. Hospitality sits in every village, in every town, in every city. We build our societies around hospitality and if that goes, we will have lost something that will take a long time to recover. Here, in the east yorkshire town of bridlington, before covid, there was a busy restaurant trade. It is a town built on the success of its fishing industry. They call it the lobster capital of europe, handing around £4 million worth every year. A lot of our product goes into the restaurant chain, goes into the Hospitality Industry and, with those shut in the uk and across europe, there simply wasnt the market. The fact is not many of us go into the supermarket and buy lockdown. And buy lobster. No, we dont. I think, during lockdown, people have got a little more adventurous with their food so, hopefully, one of the positive outcomes of this is that people will buy more of our product locally. Marco is a welcome sight. His truck normally comes once a week to collect lobster, destined forfine dining in paris and elsewhere in europe. So where will all these lobsters go . 60 stay for the french market, and the 40 rest it is for usually italy, spain and portugal. How is that market doing now . Is it beginning to recover . The first week, when the lockdown finished, everyone said, oh, yes, we will go to the restaurant and the pub but its wrong because only the first day it was busy and after everybody stayed home now. Why do you think that is . Why do you think they dont want to go out . Because at this moment you have to keep one metre between each other, people, and it is not friendly. It is not what we want. We want to go to a restaurant with ourfamily, everybody happy, shake hands, give a kiss but. This was our upstairs restaurant area with four larger tables. Every weekend for three weeks, sometimes four weeks in advance, we was booked. Rustics has been a popular neighbourhood restaurant for some time, serving fresh, locally caught produce. Lockdown, its heartbreaking. You try to take the positive things it would only be for a few weeks. Those few weeks turn into a few more weeks, and its been really scary, really scary times. Now the government is encouraging restaurants to open up again and offering Financial Support to do so, but there are still challenges. The biggest of them, social distancing. For us to be able to work at 50 capacity, we just would not survive. Four tables upstairs, we would have four downstairs, but only used two at any one time anyway. So to half that, we just wouldnt be able to open the doors. It just would not work for us. So they have adapted. Reopening is a street food venue, selling the same menu. Some of the seafood items on the menu are the lobster rolls, and then there would be the simple styled crab noodles, all using bridlington crab and bridlington lobster. But to take away. I think people will have to adapt and evolve and make changes, definitely, in order to survive. There is going to have to be a different way, a different style of eating out. Actually eating out the door rather than sitting in, so that part of our logo, motto i suppose, were going to be saying is quality eats without the seats sort of thing, so i think a lot of places are going to have to do the same. And many have. Hello, maam. What can i do for you . Hi, what have you got today . I have chicken, ive got corn dobbs, ive got fish and the pork. Can i have some fish, please. This is the sauce i make. In kent, chef dexter is now reaping the rewards. I have been a chef for 16 years now. Being in lockdown actually put me in a situation where i have never been before. Dexter, ive got a new order. We call it a tropical slaw, weve got watermelon, ginger, coconut and cabbage. He has set up a street food and delivery service. Within minutes, i got people come in, calling for orders. And of the business is booming. It has really opened doors for me and i am very grateful. But for some of the bigger beasts of the restaurant trade, surviving has been more of a challenge. Very familiar chains have closed doors, and others are on the brink. Since the 1st of april, more than 1200 restaurants have shut down and the sector has shed more than 17,000 jobs. Hello there, welcome, is everyone excited . Awesome. This is brewdog, a billion pound food and drink business with 104 bars spread across 20 countries. We lost 70 of our revenue overnight. When covid hit, it was like a wrecking ball. Which is millions for us and, actually, we are reasonably diverse as a business because we brew our own beer, we sell beer to supermarkets, we are international. This branch hasjust reopened. I was really quite nervous at first but its alright now. Thank you. So nice to see you back. My god this is our local so we have been walking past just to check out when it was going to be open again. Very excited. Notjust the fact that the bars are open, its the whole meeting up with other people as well. You can only hear the same stories so many times, so to hear fresh stories would be amazing. Another big rock in the road for places like this is working from home, a killerfor businesses relying on the lunchtime sandwich or an after office pint. Were in a predominantly office led part of london, and this business thrives when people leave the office at five oclock and grab a bite to eat and a beer. I cant see that happening in this area anywhere near the levels that it was before, certainly until next year. An industry that was once responsible for around 30 of Food Consumption is now cautioning that, in city centres in particular, it will struggle to get business back to even half of what it was by september. To help things move along, now the treasury is helping pay for us to eat out. Can i go for the avocado feta bowl, please, and because of the government is helping out, i will have a bit of halumi with that. No problem. Oh, great, lovely. Can i get you anything else . No, im cool, thanks very much indeed. This looks lovely. On mondays to wednesdays throughout august, the government will pick up half the cost of your meal. Up to a maximum discount of £10. That is an eye catching offer but will it really be enough to prop up the multi billion pound Hospitality Industry . Well, they might have their work cut out, as Research Done just days before the scheme launched, suggested that only 15 of people were happy to go out for a restaurant meal. 18 said they might go in a month. And 23 said they would be more willing to eat out later in the year. We need to address the fear of going out, and we need to do that in a way that customers feel as though were being safe and steady and respectful and that we put their well being at heart but we do need to seriously address the fear of going out into leisure, into hospitality and to retail over the months ahead, if these crucial parts of our economy are going to reopen and reopen in a way that is successful. Across the industry, the expectation is that it will take time to get business back to how it was. We are expecting and planning that we are going to take minimum 18 months to get back to the sort of revenue levels in our pubs that we experienced prior to covid. And what we have seen in most countries where we reopened is that we reopen at around about 50 of normal revenue. We do not make any money until we get to 80 , so there is a difficult, hard pathway ahead for hospitality businesses. A lot depends on whether we see a smooth return to normality or whether changes that we made to the way we eat will stick. We have lost a couple of customers who wont come back, and weve just got to see how the rest of this summer goes before we start to make any hard plans. Although the supermarket trade is up. So what lessons should we take from our food habits during lockdown . I think that probably a food supply chain, generally speaking, is really quite agile, and flexible and adaptable. What they do not like is very short, sharp shocks and that is exactly what it got back in kind of late march and early april. And the man writing the government food strategy, thinks we should prepare for more such shocks. We need to think about how we make the system more robust. As we saw at the beginning of march, when people become a bit more anxious, they put something aside, put a little extra into the larder, and i actually think there is a very good argument that, we as a country, might do that as well. This would have sounded insane if i were to have said this in january or february. It might actually mean literal stock piling. Some might say this is a dress rehearsal for us to start thinking very, very hard about what a really resilient system has to be and i think one of the things that were learning right now is that it is back to the local, back to communities. And it is a measure of the impact of covid on our food system that we are now worrying where our next meal is coming from. This is bbc news. Welcome if youre watching here in the uk, on pbs in america, or around the globe. Im Lewis Vaughan jones. Our top stories President Trump brokers a peace deal between israel and the united arab emirates. Israels Prime Minister calls it an historic breakthrough. I believe there is a good chance we will soon see more arab countries joining this expanding circle of peace. Israel has agreed to delay plans to annex more palestinian land, but the palestinian president calls the deal a betrayal of his peoples cause. Tens of thousands in belarus stage more protests against alexander lu kashenkos disputed election, as the government announces the release of detained protesters. His arrest in his own words. Hong kong newspaper owner jimmy lai describes being
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.