Some of you may realize things have been a bit different in the big wide world over the course of the last six weeks. For some it may be hard to remember exactly what it was like before that time. In some ways it seems years ago or at least a paradigm shift ago!
For us here the result has been a profound effect on our business and how we approach every day. It has been a whirlwind of changing landscapes.
There are two sides to our business, vegetable production and sales, and spring plant production and sales. 6 weeks ago our vegetable business was about 40% restaurants. Overnight the restaurants dropped off the map leaving us worried for their long term viability and our short term sales. Also overnight our retailers picked up the slack and have continued to do so. At the same time we have had a steady increase in individual retail customers wanting to support local production and put fresh safe food on their table.
Shortly after the pandemic was declared the Ontario Government announced that only essential businesses would be allowed to operate. Those sands have been shifting and continue to do so for all the businesses operating in Ontario (and elsewhere). Because of those announcements we started down the road of putting our product online and developing processes at our greenhouses to ensure we could take those orders and fulfill them in a safe and timely manner for both our staff and our customers. That task is mountainous and still ongoing.
So back to the personal. Our employees and us have been struggling with trying to remain focused on the job in front of them. Remarkably we have all been able to do that! (Brian here switching to first person 🙂 I am a hockey fan and some of you may remember Wayne Gretzky. I remember him being interviewed and being asked about the key to performance during high pressure situations. His answer was that you had to keep from getting too low from the failures as well as getting too high from the successes. (….back to third person!). We have all been trying to do that with varying degrees of success. It is very easy to drop into despair but the plants still have to be watered and the greens still have to be cut and so it happens and maybe it helps to dampen the despair to have those tasks. The successes are real and building even when it is hard to see them but they also seem fleeting so maybe Waynes advice is not so necessary on the high side!
And to the personal on the readers side. The context for us all during this time is stress and for us here at times overload. We are having extraordinary demands placed upon us on all levels including physical and emotional. We know that all we can do is our best and we have to be content with that. So if we forget to respond to an email, voicemail, text or social media request please be patient with us. Our best is simply that and we know it is not perfect. Please don’t take it personally!
