Why We're Not Discounting This Easter

We sat down earlier this year to begin planning what is for us the second busiest time of year… Easter. The obvious place for us to start was the previous Easter, which had seen great sales numbers and lots of boxes heading out of our Somerset operations, much of this driven by a set of tiered discounts.

There's such a natural drive for growth in business, and the number i'm asked about most is revenue. Has it gone up or down? What are our plans for revenue growth over the next 3 years? I have to be honest I bought into that revenue focus, but as we sat to look at last year’s Easter and we looked beneath the revenue number, we saw that once our bills and invoices had been paid, we had hardly made any money. Now I’m not in this to make lots of money, if I wanted that I'd have started a different business. I want to make a difference to the British farming industry and I genuinely care about connecting our farmers with people who care about their hard work and investment. But we can do that for us and them without underselling ourselves.

So we made the bold decision to do things differently this year and see what happens. We have a couple of set boxes which work out at a better price than buying the items separately, and our subscribers get their usual 5% lower members’ price, but other than that we aren’t creating any discount codes, sending any vouchers or lowering any prices this Easter. 

For me, there are four primary issues with discounting for us:

What we sell is really, truly great quality. I honestly believe that you can’t buy better meat anywhere else. If we need to discount in order to get you to buy that, we haven’t done a good enough job explaining the value of what we’re selling. It doesn’t matter to me what a leg of lamb costs in Sainsbury’s, Tesco, M&S, Waitrose. That’s not what we’re selling. You cannot buy what we sell on any supermarket shelf, however much they may try to convince you otherwise.

We pay farmers fairly and work collaboratively with them. This morning I have spoken to one of our free-range pig farmers, a piemaker and our salmon curer. The message is consistent, this financial year has been really difficult and it looks like it’s about to become harder with extreme weather, impending fuel price rises, feed price increases and of course National Insurance and minimum wage increases. We pay our farmers the price they want, and they have my mobile number to call me whenever they need to. Sometimes we’re asked 'why are you so expensive’? My answer is that we’re not, the supermarkets are too cheap, often asking suppliers to subsidise their product or selling the product as a ‘loss leader’ to get you into the shop. 

The margins in selling what we sell are not big, so frankly there isn’t room to discount. When we look at the price of something we’re buying, it’s so important to think about what’s gone into that and why it costs what it does. In the case of farming, an animal has lived, it’s been cared for, housed, fed, you hope with respect and care. Every single input there is going to be reflected in what it costs. Our meat is cut by butchers not machines, by hand, here in the UK. Our wild fish is landed by independent day boats and bought at the harbour markets of the South West. Across the country right now are individuals tending their flocks, checking on their bee hives, topping up the wood chip in their smokers, battling the rough seas to land their day’s catch, rolling out pie pastry. All of this is the sort of food we want to eat, proper food made by real people and supporting a great food system which is sustainable and delicious too. But it costs money, and there’s no room for discounts. I'd argue the alternatives cost us more dearly, just in different ways.

We’re an independent, founder-owned business. We don’t have millions in private equity backing to go and find revenue growth at any cost. The economics of sales have to work for us, and I’m pleased we have to do business this way. It’s made us strong, and we’ve been able to navigate the choppy waters of the post-Covid years where we’ve seen others fall by the wayside. Our mission is to preserve and sustain traditional British farming, and the bottom line is that we can’t do that unless everyone involved can cover their costs.

So how's it going? So far, not bad. Order numbers are lower than last year, which we expected off the back of this decision, but I’m feeling hopeful as we head into the final weekend of Easter sales (our order deadline is midnight on Monday). We went into this decision knowing it might hurt us in the short term but make us stronger in the years ahead. I’m so grateful that so many of you get it, and know why what we sell shouldn’t cost the same as what you can get in the supermarket. But I know there's more we can do, and I’m excited to build even stronger connections between you and our farmers across the rest of the year so that we can communicate that value more and more. 

To support our British farmers this Easter shop here. 

Thanks for reading.

 
All the best,

James