We have all heard the phrase “the gift that keeps on giving” but have you ever considered what the opposite of that might be… the uninvited guest who keeps on taking, the bottomless pit of disappointment, the funsponge of unrealized hope? Whatever it is, it certainly applies to Covid-19 and the various trials and tribulations we have all experienced since it first appeared. Despite nearly two years of disruption and difficulties, the start of the 2021-2022 winter season has been possibly the most unexpectedly complicated beginning to a ski season that we have ever experienced, presenting all kinds of challenges and causing all kinds of problems.
The Trading Post began as a primarily winter-based business, supplying hard-to-get British foodstuffs to hotels, restaurants, chalet companies and businesses across the French Alps. Whilst our customer base in the mountains has expanded massively over the last 15 years (and scale has increased accordingly), our preparations for the winter have always been the same… fill the warehouse (to the gunnels) with stock, hire plenty of delivery drivers and be ready-to-go as soon as the orders start rolling in. With predictions for the start of the 2021-2022 season being fairly optimistic, we did as we always do, invested in huge amounts of stock and hired our largest team ever. The orders began to flood in from all the mountain resorts across the French Alps, Italy and Austria and, as we always do in December, the whole team was working long hours to get large start-of-season orders out on time. Then the omicron variant of Covid happened, followed by restrictions on British tourists…
With so many of our winter customers relying on British tourists, the orders immediately dried up and were even withdrawn at late notice. Suddenly, we had gone from ‘full steam ahead’ to ‘out of steam,’ with a warehouse full of produce (plenty of it fresh and relatively short-dated) and a large team of pickers, packers, drivers, kitchen-staff and admin. With the experiences of the previous two winters fresh in everyone’s minds, it was completely understandable that mountain businesses would tighten their belts at the first sign of disruption and it caused an immediate reduction in the quantity and size of orders we were receiving. The main problem was that whilst travel restriction to UK passengers caused massive issues for our customers, internally in France nothing had really ‘changed’ meaning there was no indication that there would be any government intervention to support workers’ contracts. With uncertainty whether these travel restrictions would lead to a full lockdown, our staff found themselves rapidly changing from working overtime to working strictly when necessary. This necessitated changes to our winter delivery schedule (which we had only just implemented) and general disruption to our customers.
With incoming orders seriously reduced, fresh food going out-of-date and no indication whether the restrictions were short- or long-term (or even if they portended a full lockdown or foreshortening of the ski season) we were forced to halt our regular ordering cycle from both British and French suppliers.
When the good news came that travel restrictions were to be lifted, The Trading Post (like so many people throughout France and the UK) were somewhat relieved. However, we were then faced with essentially re-starting the season, but this time with a reduced stock and the prospect of delayed deliveries. Since the UK left the EU, importing goods has been much slower, so by necessarily breaking our usual ordering pattern, we found ourselves running out of some British-sourced items which we would normally have constantly moving through our warehouse. Whilst we are ‘catching up’ with demand a few weeks after the enforced hiatus, the after-effects of the government restrictions are likely to have a subtle impact upon our whole winter season.
Essentially it has been the trickiest start to a season that (hopefully) any of us will experience and, as a result, our service has not been as consistent or predictable as we would hope. We have sometimes been out of stock of our most popular products, we have had to change our delivery schedule on more than one occasion (which we would never normally do in a season) and we have not always provided the high level of service that has become associated with The Trading Post.
If you have been affected by any of these issues, we are sorry. We know the last few years have been extremely difficult for many people and, whilst the lack of beans or change of delivery date might be fairly innocuous matters for some people, we thought it best to just explain the main issues we (and many of our customers) have been dealing with this winter.
Thanks for understanding, thanks for shopping with The Trading Post and thanks for working with us in these Covid-affected times.
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