A young Huddersfield business has seen business soar during lockdown, with sales increasing a staggering 265% between February and April this year.
Lamb2Ewe launched just last year with the aim of getting top quality, high welfare, sustainable meat, delivered direct from carefully vetted Yorkshire farmers, to customers’ tables across the UK. Since the Coronavirus crisis began, demand for their online service has skyrocketed, and the company has had to work quickly to adapt and meet the needs of their increasing customer base.
With orders in the first two weeks of April surpassing orders taken throughout the whole of 2019, the team had to move fast to meet this rapidly increasing demand. As well as taking on two temporary butchers, a new customer service team member and increasing the size of the packing team, the company has also extended its premises at its shop in Honley to provide additional butchery and freezer space, and treble its fridge capacity.
Owner Tom Kitchen-Dunn explains: “The increase in demand has been phenomenal and lockdown has proved a transformational time for Lamb2Ewe. As well as taking on new staff and increasing workspace, we had to alter our range to make the volume of orders more manageable. To meet the demand, we had to reconfigure our business almost overnight.
“The fact that we only use local, independent farmers has meant that these smaller suppliers are also seeing their businesses grow in a way they have never experienced. It has been challenging on all sides to fulfil the growth in orders, but it is essential that all of us working in the food industry pull out all the stops to ensure people staying at home can continue to access the products they need.
“As an organisation, we are acutely aware that whilst our business is growing through this crisis, many aren’t as fortunate and it’s an immensely difficult time for lots of people. We asked ourselves what we could do to give something back so, for every two-week family pack purchased, we’re making a donation to a local charity scheme that keeps food on the tables of our amazing NHS staff.
“Whilst many people are shifting from supermarkets to independent suppliers for safety, convenience and availability at the moment, the positive feedback we are receiving from our new customers gives us every confidence that we could be seeing a permanent shift in the way people buy their food. This is good news for companies like ours, as well as the farmers that we work with. A large, new customer base is learning first-hand about the benefits of buying high quality meat with provenance and discovering some of the UK’s best produce comes from the farms here in Yorkshire.”
Lamb2Ewe sells its premium, sustainable, ethically reared and non-religiously slaughtered meat to customers across the UK via its website, along with a range of other food products including pies. The business opened its first bricks and mortar shop in Honley last autumn.
