Coffee Van life in a Covid_19 world
A glimpse into the pandemic of 2020 and the impact on our coffee van business
Like many small businesses in the events industry, we felt the impact of Covid_19 immediately, even before the country hit lockdown. Our first phone call came from a customer late February to postpone a 2 week sales campaign running in March, which would have been delivered in the days before lockdown was announced.
In March the rest of our customers followed suit as, one by one, our events over the next 3 months fell out of bed, as if they were a set of dominoes crashing down successively, with a similar velocity.
In the events industry, decisions had to be made quickly and without foresight, and the right decisions were made, with our full support, to cancel every single event, campaign, brand activation, festival and sporting competition out there. It was more important to save lives.
The events that cancelled were all designed to bring people together, to engage face to face and meet other people, building relationships and forging bonds. Worldwide sporting competitions such as Henley Regatta couldn’t go ahead, nor could smaller local fundraisers. Anything that involved people coming together was suddenly banned. And hence our world crumbled.
2020 was set to be a big year for us, we’d both committed 100% of our time into the business for the first year since the launch of our business in 2011, we had more events than ever and the film & tv craft services market had really accelerated for us. So to say it was less than ideal timing is an understatement. But one thing we knew is that we weren’t going to change the situation. The only things we could change was our business model.
Positive mental attitude
I’ve always believed that life is what you make of it. It’s all about attitude. Following an initial state of shock and disbelief, our view was ‘well if we are back by June for all of our summer events then it will be OK, we can ride out 3 months without revenue coming in.’ As the lockdown period entered its second month however it became apparent that this was probably not going to be the case and our summer events were at risk also. Our nightmare came true and a second wave of sadness ensued. We started to think about how we could change the business. Unsure of how the government grants would affect us, where we would be financially and what opportunity there was for us to earn an income we started exploring ideas. Sitting in the garden one day we decided to try a local coffee delivery round. More for sanity than money, to offer a purpose to the day and look at using up stock that would otherwise go to waste.
And so, in late April we began our coffee deliveries, 4 weeks after lockdown began. A business plan that we had never thought for us has now become our way of life. We started playing the hand we were dealt in the best way we could, with hope and vilality.
As soon as we started promoting the service we had instant uptake from our friends (who probably wanted to support us) and local residents (some of whom couldn’t face the days without their beloved coffee fix, others who sought solace in some sense of normality to their new regime if working whilst acting teacher) and we set to it. We felt a sense of responsibility and vulnerability — there were our friends and neighbours and the last thing we wanted to do was let them down in any way or cause any awkwardness should our standards slip.
Thankfully other than the odd missed delivery, a few wrong chased payments and a less-than-hot latte, we seem to have juggled by and kept our customers (and friends) happy. Orders have steadily climbed and we have adjusted life and business to the new regime.
Our mini coffee van has been perfectly tucked away in our garage where the magic happens, before being rushed out for delivery. All with precision timing. Customers pay us by bank transfer on a weekly basis and they can enjoying their coffee fix from the safety of their own home. Thinking about it, this must be the first ever coffee delivery service in the UK so perhaps we’ve come up with a sustainable new offering that could be here to stay.
How long will it last? Who knows. As long as our customers want their coffee delivered then maybe we’ll be here. Or maybe the events industry will pick up and we’ll have to make some decisions around which way to go and when. Until September at least it looks like we’re here to stay.
Finding the positives
Throughout this experience we have streamlined the business where possible and made a few changes — we moved bank accounts, we have taken on the maintenance of our website ourselves, gone through our stock and consolidated. However the biggest epiphany has been how rewarding it has been to work locally. We’ve loved meeting people in the local community that we’ve not encountered before and enjoyed the interaction with friends and neighbours through the daily coffee round, the smiles we bring and the positive feedback we receive. For some, the coffee really makes a difference to their day.
I just hope that others have been able to make changes and adapt to the economical circumstances that we find ourselves in and gain something positive as an outcome.
About Camper Cafe
Camper Cafe is a mobile coffee business that supports the events and film & TV industries with artisan coffee, smoothies, cakes and snacks. The coffee vans can be branded for sales promotional tours, marketing campaigns and brand activations and are also hired by businesses for staff treats, conferences and exhibition.
You can discover more at https://camper-cafe.co.uk
