Inspiring small businesses that adapted during the pandemic
Recent research by Capterra highlighted that since the pandemic hit, 60 percent of SMEs have reassigned employees to different roles in response to COVID-19. 76 percent of companies have changed some or all of their offering so it can be delivered virtually and 51 percent of SMEs have had to make an investment in software in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic might have caught us unprepared, but it also made us more resilient and innovative. We spoke to inspiring business owners who pivoted their business and found new ways to turn a difficult situation into an opportunity for growth:
Nourished
Nourished is a brand-new concept, which offers the world’s first truly personalised nutrition product. The team have developed a patented 3D printing technology which allows them to combine 7 different, high impact active ingredients into customised nutrition stacks. As a start-up business the last couple of months during the COVID-19 pandemic have been challenging, particularly because the company doesn’t hold any product in stock and 3D print everything on demand so had to keep the production running.
Nourished has implemented heightened hygiene conditions to ensure the safety of their production staff, including ordering food deliveries for them and providing bikes, so they didn’t have to use public transport. In a bid to support the community as much as possible, alongside regular orders, the company has been making ‘Inner Defence’ nutrient stacks, a proprietary blend of high impact active ingredients designed to boost the immune system, to donate to key workers within the NHS, care homes and the British army. Nourished also transformed its R&D lab into a facility to make hand sanitisers, distributed to key workers and customers for free. Moreover, the tech department has been busy 3D printing PPE visors, which have been donated to Birmingham City Council for distribution amongst the local community.
Captain Fantastic Children’s Entertainment
Captain Fantastic Children’s Entertainment have completely pivoted their business during the pandemic as there has been a huge change in how birthday parties can take place. When Covid hit, the business was close to a shutdown, as all party and event bookings were cancelled. Regardless of this, the team were determined to stay positive and do everything they could to help people who were struggling to keep their children constantly entertained.
Captain Fantastic were the first toddler group to launch online, and they found it to be a phenomenal success worldwide. Their first Toddler Session took place on 18th March and it was attended by over 5,000 people from across the globe. Since the launch of their Live Toddler Group, Captain Fantastic now offer a full schedule of Free Live Sessions a week including English, Maths, Science, History, Fitness, Wellbeing, Singing and much more. They have also launched their Online Interactive Parties. Their online following has since grown from 3k to over 70k, with their online events reaching over 3 million people worldwide. They now provide over 200 Online Interactive parties a week, across the world, including in Europe, Canada and Australia.
Homage 2 Fromage
Homage 2 Fromage have very successfully pivoted almost 180 degrees from events held in pubs to a cheese box delivery business. The founders have built Homage2Fromage into a very successful cheese tasting events business running informal and informative cheese tasting events for up to 100 people across the UK for over the past nine years. When Covid-19 hit in March, the business had no choice but to effectively close down and wait until lockdown ended. However, with nothing to lose, they decided to try and sell a few cheese boxes delivered to people's houses. This also helped support cheesemakers who were also struggling to sell their cheese during the pandemic.
Originally thinking they would sell maybe 50 or 60 boxes and it would keep them ticking over until things got back to normal, Homage 2 Fromage sold well over 1000 boxes and more than tripled their turnover. “We've been bowled over by how successful it's been, and we've learnt a lot about portioning and wrapping cheese! Our business will never be the same again, but our creative answer to it has meant we should survive to eat cheese for another day.”, said Vickie Rogerson, co-founder of Homage 2 Fromage.
Pure Punjabi
When Covid-19 shut the country down, Surinder and Safia’s North Indian cookery and hospitality company, Pure Punjabi, had to postpone the traditional workshops of its Indian cookery school, and also cancel all events, markets and show bookings.
It was a huge blow. Until March 2020, the workshops and events business had generated over 80% of Surinder and Safia’s revenue, and only one of them could furlough themselves for a month. With true entrepreneurial spirit, Surinder and Safia looked at the Indian meal kits side of the business, through which they delivered ingredients to people at home who could then cook their own meals.
So, they repackaged individual meal kit sachets as dinner kits and wrote a heartfelt email to their customer database. The response was astonishing and completely overwhelming: website sales went up by 1200% in the first month. They then introduced a free social cook-alongs with the dinner kits, where everyone could make the same meal via Zoom. It’s been so popular and such a joy that they’re continuing with the Zoom cook-alongs even post-lockdown.