In Praise of Short Supply Chains
As the coronavirus pandemic affects every area of the food supply chain, the ORFC team find out how Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), box schemes and others working with shorter supply chains are responding to the sudden huge demand for their supplies.
For many people farming, growing or producing food in the UK, the date of March 16th will be etched on their memory forever. This was the first of the daily press conferences given by the government in response to the coronavirus crisis and the date that Boris Johnson recommended the public no longer visited pubs or restaurants. It was also the day the great British public really understood we were facing a crisis of such enormity that our normal food supply chains could be affected and started looking for alternatives, fast.
Within days, CSAs, box schemes, independent and alternative food suppliers received thousands of enquiries. CSAs used to attracting a dozen or so new members a year had so many people wanting to sign up they were forced to close their books. The bigger box schemes like Shillingford Organics in Devon doubled their customer base while the Riverford website received 43 million impressions in one week. Meanwhile, others who supplied the catering and restaurant business were left with no customers at all and had to find new ways to distribute their food. One week later, the country was in lockdown and farmers, and food producers had been officially named as “key workers”—i.e., one of the most important groups of people in our society.
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