TWO neighbouring food businesses in a small village near Devizes have joined forces to make it easier for vulnerable people to get essential supplies.

Heritage Fine Foods is working with Lowerfields butchers in Coate, near Devizes so meat boxes as well as fruit and veg selections that can be delivered to people who are self-isolating.

Ken Mortimer of Heritage Find Foods said: “We would like to pay a massive thank you to all of our staff who have been working all hours to get 500 boxes a day packed and delivered.

“And another to all the customers who have supported a local business through this difficult time.”

Heritage acted quickly to transform its business as soon as the coronavirus emergency started and then realised working with Lowerfields to add meat boxes to its website was the obvious next step. It is also able to deliver Arkells beer.

Mr Mortimer said he and his wife Kay started Fiveaday Box selling fruit and veg in 2011. He said: “By 2017 we were less than two per cent retail and the rest was schools, pubs, hotels, restaurants so we changed our name.

“When the lockdown was announced we anticipated 80 per cent of customers closing and discussed temporary closure ourselves

“Then one of us spotted that our very old 5aday Box home delivery website had gone absolutely crazy. So we got our 71 year old web engineer out of retirement and he worked on the site.

“Next we explained to our drivers that we needed them to convert from 4am start foodservice drivers to daytime home delivery drivers

“Then we asked the packers and loaders to do the same thing, all our staff have been absolutely amazing.

“Next we started the drive-thru idea as visits to supermarkets became difficult and a contactless collection service seemed a good concept.”

Their buyers had to chase down stock as one item after another from eggs to flour were in short supply and instead of laying off staff have need to recruit more along with extra vans. recruited more staff, bought more vans and more stock

Mr Mortimer said: “Turnover is now similar to pre-virus levels but home deliveries are about 80 per cent of the business.”

Chris Stokes from Lowerfields said: “We bought Lowerfields Farm and took over the existing butchery business in 1973 and it has been run by the Stokes family ever since.

“It was primarily butchering local farmers’ animals and providing packs of meat to the public for their freezers

“It then evolved into supplying meat to pubs, restaurants, schools and to the general public.

“Lockdown has seen a decrease in the catering trade but a vast increase in the retail trade as the public are more comfortable coming to us than venturing to the supermarket,.

“We are now supplying meat boxes to Heritage Fine Foods for delivery or collection but our customers are still welcome to come to us.