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Fine food and drink professionals in the UK say the industry is rapidly recovering from the impact of COVID-19, with some businesses doing even better after adapting during the pandemic.

However while demand is high, issues such as Brexit, labour shortages and backlogs at ports mean getting supplies in and out of the country remains a challenge.

STORY-LINE:

The Specialty and Fine Food Fair is back at London's Kensington Olympia, after it - along with most large events - was put on hold in 2020 due to COVID-19.

Attending are members of an industry hit particularly hard by the pandemic, especially those working in the hospitality sector.

One such company is Dylan's, a successful restaurant chain in North Wales.

Forced to close during repeated national lockdowns in the UK, its owners started making Dylan's meals which could be packaged and eaten by customers at home.

"It hit us really hard at first obviously, like all restaurant businesses, we had no business. So it made us think on our feet and rather than sitting at home doing nothing, we decided to develop into a retail range," explains one of the directors of Dylan's, Robin Hodgson.

"So what we decided to do was take our restaurant meals, package them up, make them with the same quality that we would do for our customers inside the restaurant, package them so that people could take them home and eat those same quality meals in their own houses. And it's been a tremendous success."

The UK is currently experiencing food and drink supply chain disruption with a range of issues such Brexit and backlogs related to COVID-19 contributing.

Some supermarket shelves are empty and online shopping is frequently plagued with shortages.

Aware of this, Dylan's decided to capitalise on a feature which has always made it popular - sourcing local materials.

"The big problem with Brexit that kind of snuck in at the same time was that we had problems with the supply chain," explains Hodgson.

"And the big ethos of Dylan's was to try and use as much locally sourced produce as we can. And that's what we've done with our retail range here. So what we do is we try and find the local products and make those into the sauces, into the ready meals that we have now."

Pivoting the business and thinking ahead of the supply chain issue has led to success for Dylan's.

"We've had the best summer that we've ever had," says Hodgson.

Another company whose product is in popular demand is New English Teas.

However their products are packed in India and Sri Lanka and international logistics to get the tea back to the UK are becoming more complex.

"Selling the products has become the easy part, actually getting the product to the customer has been the challenge," explains the company's Sales Director, Adrian Woodley.

Woodley says there's currently a lack of vessels and container space, with the impact of COVID-19 is still being felt at the ports:

"I know ports have been hit certainly globally around the world with the impact of Covid, and the availability of staff to work in the ports. But also some ports are getting very much overrun now because where ports have closed because of Covid outbreaks, products are then being skipped to other ports and that then gets backed up. And skipping ports, vessels that we're shipping to Hong Kong for instance, the products are being diverted because they're not prepared to wait to go into northern China. So again you've got delay after delay."

With many changes to customs and border rules following Brexit, exporting products from the UK to Europe is now more complex and prone to delays.

La Tua Pasta is a high-end restaurant supplier in the UK and also exports to Paris. They survived the worst of the pandemic by creating a website and selling fresh pasta directly to homes.

"We thought we had one mountain to climb which is Covid, then it turns out that there was a second mountain which was Brexit," explains Patricia Adrian-Hanson, Creative Director at La Tua Pasta.

Like many others at the fair, Adrian-Hanson says transport logistics are now the company's greatest challenge - particularly when it comes to exporting fresh pasta to Europe, which also requires certification from a vet (Official Veterinarian) because it contains animal products:

"We have a truck that goes to Paris every Saturday and we always dread that Saturday phone call, from our customs agent telling us that the truck is stuck because there is a box that wasn't checked on the 60 page document that the English vet had to fill out, or the French vet had a problem. Or the French vet was on holiday and the new vet that was standing in didn't agree with how things should be done, or had a different opinion etc."

Adrian-Hanson says we're still living in a world of uncertainty and that she is always very nervous about whether the truck will clear the border and make it to the customer in time to still be fresh.

Another company at the fair which says Brexit and labour shortages have created challenges is the Devon Distillery, particularly when it comes to importing the bottles for their products.

However since they also run a gin and a rum school and consider themselves a hospitality company they say a culture change - which has seen more people wishing to work from home since lockdown - is creating staffing shortages too:

"People come in, they design their own gin, their own rum, they put a label on their bottle, it's a very fun thing to do," says Kate Le Maux, Head of Operations at Devon Distillery.

"But it's definitely hospitality based and just trying to get the staff for that, I mean these days have changed so significantly and we're finding that although it's still a very fun job there are less and less people who are looking for that kind of work. So we are struggling and we are currently on a recruitment drive at the moment. So yeah it is difficult."

The Specialty and Fine Food Fair is the UK's leading showcase of artisanal food and drink and is at London's Kensington Olympia from 6th to 7th September 2021.

London, UK - 6 September 2021

1. Bartender doing tricks with bottle at 'Inspiration Bar' at Speciality and Fine Food Fair 2021 at Kensington Olympia

2. Bartender explaining to visitor how their bar works

3. Close of signage for Speciality and Fine Food Fair

4. Tilt down exhibition space at Kensington Olympia

5. Crowds climbing stairs in exhibition space

6. Jars and bottles on display at Dylan's stand

7. Tilt up jars and bottles

8. Robin Hodgson, one of the directors of Dylan's talking to visitor about how their company pivoted during the pandemic

9. SOUNDBITE (English) Robin Hodgson, Co-Director, Dylan's

"I mean it hit us really hard at first obviously, like all restaurant businesses, we had no business. So it made us think on our feet and rather than sitting at home doing nothing, we decided to develop into a retail range. So what we decided to do was take our restaurant meals, package them up, make them with the same quality that we would do for our customers inside the restaurant, package them so that people could take them home and eat those same quality meals in their own houses. And it's been a tremendous success."

10. Hodgson showing visitor their ready meals

11. Pan across ready meals in fridge

12. SOUNDBITE (English) Robin Hodgson, Co-Director, Dylan's

"The big problem with Brexit that kind of snuck in at the same time was that we had problems with the supply chain. And the big ethos of Dylan's was to try and use as much locally sourced produce as we can. And that's what we've done with our retail range here. So what we do is we try and find the local products and make those into the sauces, into the ready meals that we have now."

13. Pull focus from Dylan's chutney to crackers

14. SOUNDBITE (English) Robin Hodgson, Co-Director, Dylan's

"Covid's made us think in different angles and in different directions and it's pushed our business. We've had the best summer that we've ever had and we've got another side to the business that we never had before. So yeah it's been hard but it's pushed us and we're making it work."

15. Various of exhibitor stirring a curry

16. Wide of New English Teas stand

17. Close of tins of tea with pictures of the British royal family

18. Tilt up tins of New English Teas

19. SOUNDBITE (English) Adrian Woodley, Sales Director, New English Teas

"So our product is tea, as you can see, provided in very beautifully designed tins that are embossed and printed. Our products are then packed in Sri Lanka or India. Probably the biggest challenge of the last 12 months has been logistics. So selling the products has become the easy part, actually getting the product to the customer has been the challenge."

20. Close of tins of English Fine Tea

21. Wide of New English Teas products

22. SOUNDBITE (English) Adrian Woodley, Sales Director, New English Teas

"From a production point of view our factories are running at high capacity, so they are managing to produce the products. I know ports have been hit certainly globally around the world with the impact of Covid, and the availability of staff to work in the ports. But also some ports are getting very much overrun now because where ports have closed because of Covid outbreaks, products are then being skipped to other ports and that then gets backed up. And skipping ports, vessels that we're shipping to Hong Kong for instance, the products are being diverted because they're not prepared to wait to go into northern China. So again you've got delay after delay."

23. Woman trying chocolate at stand

24. Close of chocolate products

25. Various of chef at La Tua Pasta stand, serving pasta to visitors

26. SOUNDBITE (English) Patricia Adrian-Hanson, Creative Director, La Tua Pasta

"We thought we had one mountain to climb which is Covid, then it turns out that there was a second mountain which was Brexit, which was also terrible, and now we have the best mountain, which is demand, demand is back up and above where it was before Covid, which is wonderful except that whereas before we had too much of everything and we couldn't get it out to consumers fast enough, now we are scrambling to make sure that we have all of our suppliers in place, all of our logistics in place, in order to be able to service our client in the same timely manner with as much customer service as we had before."

27. Tilt across La Tua Pasta products on display

28. Tilt up from table of products to chef in background

29. SOUNDBITE (English) Patricia Adrian-Hanson, Creative Director, La Tua Pasta

"We have a truck that goes to Paris every Saturday and we always dread that Saturday phone call, from our customs agent telling us that the truck is stuck because there is a box that wasn't checked on the 60 page document that the English vet had to fill out, or the French vet had a problem. Or the French vet was on holiday and the new vet that was standing in didn't agree with how things should be done, or had a different opinion etc. So we are still living in the world of uncertainty, and because we have a fresh food product we are always very, very nervous about whether or not it will actually clear the border and make it to our customer who wants it of course on time and fresh."

30. Green VW van at drinks stand

31. Close of bottles of Hattiers Rum

32. Kate Le Maux, Head of Operations at Devon Distillery in front of stand

33. SOUNDBITE (English) Kate Le Maux, Head of Operations, Devon Distillery

"So Brexit, you know, importing things… so our bottles, and we get through quite a lot of bottles as a distillery, that's one of the things that's really been difficult for us. So it's a combination of things, so Brexit changes or rules, drivers, Covid tests, just trying to get things in has been… yeah! So our lead times have gone from a couple of weeks to months and that has had a huge effect on how the business operates."

34. Tilt up from bottles to distillery equipment on VW van

35. SOUNDBITE (English) Kate Le Maux, Head of Operations, Devon Distillery

"We have a gin school and a rum school and that is very much hospitality, customer facing. People come in, they design their own gin, their own rum, they put a label on their bottle, it's a very fun thing to do. But it's definitely hospitality based and just trying to get the staff for that, I mean these days have changed so significantly and we're finding that although it's still a very fun job there are less and less people who are looking for that kind of work. So we are struggling and we are currently on a recruitment drive at the moment. So yeah it is difficult."

36. Back of VW van reading (English) "Still on the Move"

In late October, Matthew Jones was enjoying a rare "bit of normality" at his London barber shop in a year that has been short on that.

He was cutting hair and laughing with colleagues — when the news that the business would have to close for the second time landed.

Jones, 43, endured 15 weeks without any income after the three Sharpes barber shops he co-owns were forced to shut in the spring as the government imposed restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The shops, including a tiny one in east London's Hackney neighborhood, had been open for four months when Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered a new lockdown.

"This second lockdown has been tough because you are just building up your business again trying to get back to a normal lifestyle and then all of a sudden it is all taken away and you know we still have high rents to pay here," Jones said.

The United Kingdom saw a sharp resurgence of COVID-19 infections this autumn, and the government imposed a second round of restrictions.

The suffering caused by the virus has been especially acute in the UK, where more than 57,000 people have died in Europe's deadliest outbreak and the economy has plunged.

While small businesses all over the world are struggling as the virus forces many of them to close, many in the UK are also facing the economic uncertainty caused by Britain's exit from the European Union.

Many British businesses managed to survive the spring lockdown with generous aid from the government, including grants like the £10,000 ($13,300) grant Jones received and a program that pays a portion of wages to workers whose employers are struggling.

The measures have helped keep the unemployment rate relatively low at 4.8% — though it has been rising and is forecast to hit 7.5% next spring.

The latest round of restrictions could pack a bigger punch in the crucial weeks ahead of Christmas.

Even before the second lockdown was announced, a survey conducted by Britain's Office for National Statistics showed that one in seven UK companies reported having "little or no confidence" they would survive the next three months.

Jones estimates that the pandemic wiped out 60% of his income this year.

With his shops closed, the single dad, who has a 10-year-old daughter, is doing odd jobs on building sites — and praying that business will return enough to ease the pain once restrictions lift on December 2.

The five other barbers who work in his shops are self-employed, and trying to scrape by as well.

Hackney, where one of Jones' shops is based has seen steady gentrification in the past two decades.

Located in London's historically gritty East End, the borough is filled with trendy bars and expensive apartments.

Broadway Market itself is lined with some 60 small shops, cafes and restaurants, and before COVID-19 hit, the street would throng with locals and tourists coming for the hugely popular weekend market.

These days, some shops are doing better than others, but everyone is scrambling to adapt.

Jane Howe, who has run Broadway Bookshop since 2005, said the weekends would often get so busy that her shop would take in thousands of pounds in sales per day on the back of £7.99 books.  

For a shop that relies heavily on foot traffic, the cycles of coronavirus restrictions have been hard.

In June, Howe launched a website for the first time, but she says it does not replicate shopping in person where you might buy more than you intend.

Even once her doors reopened, the tiny space meant she couldn't welcome back her usual crowds.

Sales from the website don't come close to making up for the in-person sales she's lost — especially during the crucial Christmas period.

"It's very difficult to be open because we are only allowed five people in at a time," Howe said.

With the shop pulling in just over half what it used to, Howe has stopped paying herself and when one of her two employees left, she was not able to replace her.

Like Jones, she's managed to keep paying the rent thanks to a government grant.

She has also taken out a £50,000 state loan.  

Others haven't fared as well.

A much-loved bakery next to Sharpes that was part of a 66-year-old family-run chain closed for good, Jones said.

The bakery's closure stands in contrast to a trend seen on much of the street where butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers and delis have done relatively well thanks to a surge in interest from fairly affluent locals who are now working from home and shopping locally.

Popular coffee shop Climpsons struggled to adapt at first — the cafe was shut, the wholesale business almost completely wiped out, and 34 of the company's 42 workers went on the government furlough scheme in the first weeks of the pandemic, co-owner Danny Davies said.

But now on weekdays, Climpsons often serves more take-away coffees than before the pandemic.

That makes up for losses on the wholesale side, which supplied restaurants and offices.  

"It's not great for business. We're worried about some of our customers, they're struggling. I think we ourselves have managed to weather the storm thanks to some of the resources (government grants) available," Davies said.

Down the street, Grigorios Vaitsas says business at his deli, Isle of Olive, has not been too bad, even though he has closed his small indoor cafe and Christmas shopping events have been canceled.

But Vaitsas and his partner, Paulina, who import their products from Greece, have been losing sleep over another threat: Brexit.

The couple are worried about the tariffs and bureaucracy if Britain leaves the economic embrace of the EU at the end of the year with no deal in place.

That combined with the pandemic makes a "perfect storm," Vaitsas said.  

"If the tariffs and the logistics and all of that, you know, get the prices so high that our items are now considered luxury goods, then it really changes completely our business model and what we were planning to do," Vaitas said.

London - 17 November 2020

1. Wide of people on Broadway Market

2. Road sign for Broadway Market

3. People walking on Broadway Market

4. Exterior of Sharpes Barbers with owner Matthew Jones putting up Christmas lights in the window

5. Close of 'Sharpes' sign

6. Various of Jones cleaning chair inside barber shop

7. SOUNDBITE (English) Matthew Jones, co-owner of three barber shops including Sharpes:

"This second lockdown has been tough because you are just building up your business again trying to get back to a normal lifestyle and then all of a sudden it is all taken away and you know we still have high rents to pay here. So yeah it's been really tough."

8. Jane Howe, owner of Broadway Bookshop, walking into shop

9. Cutaway of books in window

10. Howe changing book display in the window

11. SOUNDBITE (English) Jane Howe, owner of The Broadway Bookshop:

"People don't always come in knowing what they want. They see things on tables and they buy them, they just pick them up, like you don't always stick to your shopping list you usually buy more than you intend and that happens more in person than it would online."

12. Cutaway of books in window

13. SOUNDBITE (English) Jane Howe, owner of The Broadway Bookshop:

"It's very difficult to be open with only allowed five people in at a time and queues on the pavement and people taking a long time to buy their stuff instead of thinking about other people and hurrying up… you know."

14. Exterior of Climpson and Sons coffee shop with people queuing outside

15. Close of Climpson and Sons coffee shop and queue

16. Close of food in window

17. SOUNDBITE (English) Danny Davies, Co-owner of Climpson and Sons coffee shop and wholesale coffee business:

"I mean it's not great for business. We're worried about some of our customers, they're struggling. I think we ourselves have managed to weather the storm thanks to some of the resources (government grants) available."

18. Food in window

19. Employee serving person at entrance

20. SOUNDBITE (English) Danny Davies, Co-owner of Climpson and Sons coffee shop and wholesale coffee business.

"At one point in time it was really hard to see how it was going to go back to normal again but then the summer just gone we've seen pretty good sales figures. I think next year it will be similar with a bit more optimism with the vaccine."

21. Shop front of Isle of Olive deli, with Christmas decorations around it

22. Various of Paulina Filippou, co-owner of Isle of Olive dusting pastries with icing sugar

23. Pastries being put on shelf

24. Grigorios Vaitsas, co-owner of Isle of Olive, at till

25. Products for sale

26. SOUNDBITE: (English) Grigorios Vaitsas, co-owner of Isle of Olive deli:

"We hear and we see near us a lot of business shutting down, we know about rising unemployment so the coming of Brexit would just, or a no-deal Brexit rather, would just be like the perfect storm in terms of retail."

27. Various of Filippou dishing olives into pot

28. SOUNDBITE: (English) Grigorios Vaitsas and Paulina Filippou, co-owners of Isle of Olive deli:

Vaitsas: "We wanted to, to, have items that they're not just a one-off purchase they become part of..."

Filippou: "Not luxury products, people have good food every day."

Vaitsas: "So, if the tariffs and the logistics and all of that, you know, get the prices so high that our items are now considered luxury goods, then it really changes completely our business model and what we were planning to do."

30. Bottles of olive oil on shelf

31. Wide of products on shelves