Back to Work!

So where do I start!! It's been a crazy 18 months for Saffron Catering!! Turbulent is an understatement and it's not over yet. When it came from nowhere back in March 2020, we closed our kitchen doors and sent our team of 31 full time staff and 40 plus casuals home for the foreseeable future. We then locked down like the rest of the world and waited out the time with fear and confusion with no idea of what was coming next. We reduced our team and were forced to make redundancies, losing millions in turnover as we watched the pandemic take hold. Not to dwell on this... everyone knows what happened so I'll spare you the gory details but the road to recovery has been slow and steady.

During this time I’ve had my own personal challenges too as I’m sure many of you had too. I had a beautiful little lock down baby daughter, followed by major surgery on both my little girl and myself, but then who hasn't struggled in these testing times. So why am I telling you this? Well because today was my first official day back at 'work'. Obviously I’ve been running my company behind the scenes but today marks the start of a new chapter, a new era and rebuild that I have waited months to be strong enough to face.

My plans are forming and the first step is to rebuild our brand, this will take patience, time and resilience but hopefully our platform and reputation has stood the test of time. Plus there is the revenue to recover, it will not be enough for companies to recover revenues gradually as the crisis abates, we need speed and focus, and to fundamentally rethink our revenue profile, to position ourselves for the long term and to pre-empt the competition.

My next plan is the acceleration of our digital technology. I started this process back in the first few months of lockdown but it lost momentum and I need that back knowing that in this digital age, its business critical to ascertain our position in a digital market. It is already a cliché: the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the shift to digital but to not exploit that platform is missing a trick and the best companies are going further, by enhancing and expanding their digital channel. So that’s my plan for Saffron, finding a way to successfully use advanced analytics to combine new sources of data, with our own insights to make better and faster decisions and strengthen our links to customers which can differentiate between surviving and thriving and I know which one I would rather do.

I want my team at the core of the companies decisions and I'll be rethinking my operating model based on how our team work best. As a company we have increased all our wages across the board, regardless of role or performance and regardless of the companies dire profit figures in our 2020 accounts. This is a necessary in these challenging times and being a responsible employer for me is vital. Combined with our customer and their needs in a post Covid world, developing new offering based on tailored designed products. I’ve watched from the side-lines these last few months as crisis-related disruptions in supply chains and channels have dominated our companies thinking, making adaptability essential, although I know we are not alone! That will mean changing the our way of working and considering non-traditional collaborations with partners up and down the supply chain. Rapid revenue response isn’t just a way to survive the crisis, it is the next normal for how companies will have to operate and it’s a driver for Saffron.

So what’s next… job one: Identify and prioritise our revenue opportunities. I think what’s important is to recognise is the primary sources of our revenue and, on that basis, make the “now or never” moves that need to happen before the recovery fully starts. I will be launching targeted campaigns to win back our loyal customers. I will be adjusting our pricing and promotions based on new data and research, I will reallocating spending to proven growth sources, I will be up-skilling the team to support remote selling, offering creating flexible payment terms. I will digitise sales channels and automating processes to make it easier for our customers to buy from us. I will be rigorous and determined in our objectives and I will implement the learnings from the last 18 months.

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced unexpected stresses on our food systems, creating many immediate challenges that we have faced over the 2021 summer. Yet what is remarkable is the speed with which supply chains have to date been able to reorganise themselves to ensure the continued availability of food, at least in the developed world. Some bottlenecks remain in place for us and market availability is challenged, and some new disruptions may emerge as COVID-19 continues to spread knowing this isn't over yet. The rapid response of food supply chains has underscored the importance of an open and predictable international trading environment, which allows us to tap into new sources of supply when existing sources are compromised.

Our priority has been to remain transparent and fair to our customer both in our efforts to source product and in the prices we have charged for it. I will also be selecting the best new team members to facilitate our regrowth. Hospitality staff are in short supply and this job is going to be tough to tackle. So here’s my pledge.. to move onwards and upwards, and one thing I can say for certainty, is that its nice to be back!!