Andy Banton, president of Gil’s Gourmet, a Monterey, Calif.-based gourmet food manufacturer specializing in hand stuffed olives, garlic, infused olive oils, balsamic vinegars and wine-related products recently spoke with Specialty Food News about navigating the current business environment amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
What has helped you manage this crisis thus far?
As soon as it became apparent that things were getting weird back in January, and we started to see growth rates of the infection in other countries, I brought in a lot of agricultural inventory just to be safe—probably more than I should have. Having trust and solid long-standing relationships with our suppliers and customers I hope will help us come out on the other side.
Has anything unexpected happened?
We don't have a huge facility but I definitely have more of my fair share of inventory now, so I’m sitting on a lot of stuff. Usually we run with about two weeks-worth of inventory on our floor—it comes in, we make it and it immediately goes out. By me bringing in a lot of extra inventory—and maxing out most of my lines of credit—it kind of blew that model up. We are definitely not up, but, in the same breath, we have orders—especially for pasta sauce. There are a lot of people who don’t have anything. It’s a waiting game.
Did you have to re-direct your business model in anyway?
I am spending a lot time doing financial planning and modeling to see where I can redirect my business. The winery business—where are a lot of our focus was—is not coming back anytime soon and the olive bar business we had in grocery stores I anticipate will be going away. Our plan is to pivot into olives in jars and focus on more grocery retail. It’s not going to take me back to where I was, but will hopefully ramp up business to keep me going until things turn around.
Did you have to make any personnel changes?
I definitely had to make some changes and I’m operating with a smaller crew. I had to furlough a lot of my team; that was the hard thing. The question is, are they going to be able to come back and will they come back? You can’t blame people for applying to grocery stores and the Costco’s of the world.
How do you expect the CARES Act or other government plans to help you?
We are not getting paid by a lot of people and we are not paying a lot of people, unfortunately. But that is where the CARES Act and the Paycheck Protection Program will hopefully help. I’m looking at riding this out and do feel that things will start subsiding here in California in May.
What are your predictions for when this is all over?
If you can hang on for nine months you are going to be in a heck of a better place than you might be now. The survivor is the one that can actually make it through this.
If you have not spent the time to build trusting relationships you are going to see a lot of businesses go by the wayside.
I also predict no more self-service in stores. Safety is going to be paramount.
Everything is going to have to be shelf stable.
Sadly, the money that consumers do get back from the stimulus I don't think necessarily is going to go immediately back to gourmet foods, people need to pay the rent, mortgages, etc. or just may have to find a new job.
Related: The Impact of COVID-19: Q&A with Nona Lim; Paycheck Protection Program to Help Small Businesses Acquire Capital.
from Trends and Statistics https://ift.tt/2VqemfW
No comments: