What a year!
2020 saw a massive change in family life, the High Street, businesses and the way we generally do things.
As someone with a small business I could not have planned for a pandemic.
All businesses have a kind of plan. A plan that might be money related. A plan that might be events related or a plan that’s family orientated but no one had a plan with COVID-19 in mind.
At the start of the year I had a lot of corporate orders in my diary, weddings and other celebrations where my cookies would stand out as delicious but with a purpose.
And on the 23rd of March the country entered lockdown number one.
This was a major blow to the majority of businesses but in particular small businesses were hugely affected and most weren’t an essential business and therefore had to close.
For Cookie Doodle Doo the first thing to affect us was that Beth was forced to stay at home to stay safe. As a food business my premises are checked and registered with East Lindsey District Council and so there wasn't anything that Beth could do at home.
The first week or two this wasn’t a problem. I had a few orders that still needed to be prepared. Birthdays and new babies mostly. These kept me busy and life was pretty much normal for us on the farm.
The extended lockdown however meant that I had to think about how Cookie Doodle Doo would manage.
As new measures were rolled out I realised that all of my corporate orderbook had suddenly disappeared as had all the wedding cakes and wedding favours that I had booked in throughout the year.
Of course I fully understood the impact for the brides and grooms who had planned their big days sometimes years ahead. They were not going to want to choose which family members they wanted at their weddings, leaving others off the shortlist. So many rescheduled for later in the year and others for 2021 and some not at all at the minute until more is known about the future.
And the companies that had previously planned to do agricultural shows and corporate events were no longer going to be able to do this.
I like to think of myself as a positive person and I just thought "what can I do to help people who weren’t going to be able to see family and friends" and who missed them greatly as I did my own family?
So I created the big hug teapot cookie box which was an absolute hit throughout lockdown and continues now to be my best seller.
Mother’s Day is always quite busy so it kept me occupied for a couple more weeks.
I also created quite a few Easter cookie boxes which have never been as popular in the past as a basic chocolate Easter egg from the supermarket.
I haven’t really looked back but the business has certainly changed and at the moment I can’t envisage anything different for some time to come .
And in between times I created boxes of biscuits to say Thank You to the wonderful staff at the NHS for the magnificent work they have been doing.
So what happened next?
Christmas came all too quickly and whilst we remained locked down for a second time I continued to create cookies and hopefully bringing cookie love and hugs into peoples lives via the letterbox.
I hope you have enjoyed my little round up of 2020
Stay safe everyone
Love Mel X