The effect of enforced closures has impacted everyone.
The scale of what the closures mean going forward for our communities, employees, tenants, customers, tourism and charities is enormous.
Our thoughts are with all those families that have lost loved ones, with the NHS for putting themselves at such high risk, and to all of you keeping safe and keeping our industry operational through thick and thin.
For us, this crisis is not about profit or loss.
It concerns the safety and livelihood of the people and the communities we contribute to and what further steps can be taken to preserve and protect them.
Support has always been at the very heart of what we do. More than a strapline – we are here for you in whatever way we can be at this time.
We are currently fully operational. We are producing, testing and despatching our products, in order to look after our customer’s needs. We have staff on site following the restrictions and government guidelines outlined and many more staff working from home keeping the internal cogs turning to man our phones and send our products out the door.
We are getting a steady stream of micro and laboratory requests which shows brewers are using this quiet time to focus more on diligence. We have been banking fresh yeast like Scrooge McDuck and we have also had increasing requests from distillers to help with constituent products for hand sanitisers for those at the frontline of the crisis.
Many of the breweries we work with are diversifying and taking the jump to expand by offering a local delivery service/collection service and online purchases. We are filled with pride that the testing nature of this experience has not affected the strength or spirit of the community but rather developed to take up more space.
When pub doors close, online shops open with aplomb.
Of course, we have been taking full advantage of this and paying it forward! For the last few weeks, we’ve had a firkin or two from our local community of breweries to say thank you to our neighbours and the production, testing and despatching departments who do not have the flexibility of home working.
We would love to get our team sampling as many different breweries beer as possible and will happily pay and collect so if you would like to get involved please contact events@murphyandson.co.uk with pricing and address information.
Let’s not forget our team members, cheering from the side-lines. Industrious as ever, our furloughed members of the team have carried on in their unique self-productive ways. So far, the ‘furloughers’ have donned many hats. Juggling their responsibilities as parents and now full-time teachers, they have also spared time to;
-Volunteer for the NHS.
-Bake over 200 (and counting!) cakes and biscuits for the local doctors’ surgeries.
-Make face masks and PPE for local supermarkets and hospitals.
-Take up paper-rounds to chat to elderly neighbours through their windows.
-Drink their fair share of local booze to keep the industry afloat
Like many brewers we are now beginning to focus on life after the lockdown as we work on how better we can support brewers when the ‘new normal’ settles in. We are streamlining our internal services for ordering online through our website and implementing new scanners in our warehouse. With pubs and breweries needing a minimum of 3 weeks to get all pistons firing again, we are making sure we have everything in place before the big rush when normality ensues – watch out for our blogs on advice to getting ready to brew in a hurry…
We are very fortunate to have a great team at Murphy’s and to work within such a supportive culture in this fabulous industry. The tenacity and creativity of our brewers gives us faith in the future and by ‘eck we are looking forward to getting into a pub for a lovely fresh pint once the lockdown ends.
We look forward to seeing you there!