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Quality, consistency and reliability of both the product and the

delivery service are key issues when buying food online. Everyone knows

that the basics are available from the high street multiples, but now

they’re moving into the luxury end as well. The reason why? Because small

food producers are finding that the playing field is far more level when

selling online. Infinitely larger target audiences are accessible at

similar or lower marketing costs than can be reached on the high

street.

Historically, speciality food producers have sold through a limited number

of outlets - their own farms, local retailers, the major food halls - and

to customers visiting country or craft shows. Now, technically, the world

has become their oyster.

Selling food online entails travelling a rocky road, though. No matter how

good the product, customers have got to find it, and if it doesn’t have a

global brand name, be convinced that the supplier is trustworthy. Building

global brands has always been the privilege of big businesses with big

budgets. But thanks to search engines, affiliate programs and portals,

small businesses are now more able to wave their flags.

Holdsworth Chocolates first launched its web site two years ago. A

proponent of online shopping, Barbara Holdsworth, the managing partner,

saw the internet as a way of attracting an international audience which

might not otherwise find the site. She had originally named it

www.chocolatefactory.co.uk, as the Holdsworth brand was not sufficiently

well known. However, business was not entirely successful and the site has

since been redesigned and relaunched as www.holdsworthchocolates.co.uk to

build on the brand name and to attract existing customers and those who

have found the site through some other route. Both the new and the old web

address take customers to the new site.

Caragh Couldridge (www.caraghchocolates.sark.net) also identified the

internet as a means of expanding her target customer base. Based on Sark

in the Channel Islands, Couldridge has traditionally sold chocolates to

local shops that cater for visitors who take boxes home then re-order. She

has been all too aware that, in order to be successful, she needs to

expand her product offering as well as improve the web site to make it

more interesting to look at and easier to browse. Couldridge does not have

time to do any of these tasks while she concentrates on her core business,

making chocolate, although she feels that she can’t afford not to make the

time.

The logistical issues can look insurmountable to a small producer - how do

you deliver delicate food products to customers who live hundreds or

thousands of miles away? By definition, speciality producers are dedicated

to what they do. That does not necessarily include marketing or

distribution. They may not be computer literate orhave the time or

resources (human or financial) to run call centres or despatch

facilities.

Inevitably, different companies have come up with different responses. For

example, The Patchwork Traditional Food Co (www.patchwork-pate.co.uk) has

decided to build a web site that tells everyone who it is and what it

does, provides information and tantalises the tastebuds. It wants to

increase sales, but does not feel able to deal with individual customers.

Their solution is a link to one of its distributors, Wessex Provender

(www.provender.co.uk), an online delicatessen that specialises in

delivering high-quality food products directly to customers’ doors.

Provender has a retail outlet which means that it can, within reason, hold

stock of a wide range of products. Both the actual and the online shop

enable suppliers like Patchwork to benefit from opportunities for

cross-marketing.

From the customer’s point of view, online delicatessens can prove to be

very cost effective - they save time by offering a wide range of products

and they save money by incurring a single carriage charge. Their other

advantage is expertise. Customers come to rely on the buyer’s judgement

rather than randomly selecting producers without a recognisable brand name

from newspaper ads.

Adding value is a skill being developed by online delicatessens.

Teddington Cheese (www.teddingtoncheese.co.uk) and The Cheese Society

(www.thecheesesociety.co.uk) have built up a substantial amount of product

information as well as FAQ resources. Giles Henschel of Olives et Al has

bided his time in launching a web site, spending the past two years

watching others to identify the most valuable commodity he can offer. The

resulting site, to be launched in Spring 2000, will ”entertain, educate

and inform”, he says. Olives et Al’s site will be a source of information

on olives and oils. By the time customers feel ready to purchase, they

will know exactly what they want.

Finding suppliers is the hard part for customers, which is where portals

come in. Dedicated food sites, such as Carlton’s Simply Food

(www.simplyfood.co.uk), have a marketplace which links to dozens of

specialist suppliers. Other malls and portals have specific areas for food

information and shopping - Classic England, handbag and even egg have

recognised this growth area. British food is also getting in on the act

with its shopping mall full of speciality producers

(www.speciality-foods.co.uk). Space was sold on the basis that a virtual

mall would be promoted to consumers in this country and abroad. Initial

results have been slow, but it is Food from Britain’s mission to promote

the best food and drink produced in this country.

Sites aimed at expatriates and residents of other countries wanting

regular fixes of British staples are springing up like wildfire. Brits

Abroad (www.britsabroad.co.uk) and the Best of British

(www.thebestofbritish.com) concentrate on well-known brands. Heinz itself

has a site offering hampers full of baked beans and salad cream to those

who can’t get the stuff in their own country. But gift and hamper

companies offering less well known and more specialist brands are also

thriving.

Johnny Cooke-Hurle of The Teesdale Trencherman started as a sheep farmer

but has now progressed onto selling luxury foods and gift hampers by mail

order. He launched his current web site (www.trencherman.co.uk) at the end

of 1999 with a selection of hampers only. Enquiries and sales were of a

sufficiently high level to encourage a redesign and relaunch of the whole

catalogue for spring 2000. Teesdale Trencherman sells some products

available in the supermarkets, but also has its own smokehouse and links

with game dealer Fayre Game, which makes its range unique. Being able to

market his services to a larger audience at less expense than his print

catalogue costs for a considerably smaller audience appeals to

Cooke-Hurle; he is particularly attracted by the idea of it being

available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Chris Battle of Jack Scaife (www.jackscaife.co.uk) also cites as a

highlight the fact that his business is open around the clock. He loves

knowing that customers order while he sleeps. His business, one of the

most successful online food e-tailers, has now become a full-time internet

business. The Jack Scaife shop, founded over 100 years ago by Barbara

Battle’s grandfather, has been sold. Scaife has given up his market stall

and spends his time filling orders and having email chats with customers.

”The internet has changed my life,” he says. ”I used to be a boring

50-something, now I’m a happy chappy.”

Jack Scaife’s product range is limited to bacon, ham, sausages and black

puddings, all ”as it used to taste”. Although competing directly with

supermarkets, customer preferences ensure that this is an area where there

is room for lots of players.

The luxury and gift end of the food market - the very finest foods,

whether they are produced in this country or imported - is also growing.

Companies such as Lobster (www.lobster.co.uk), which offers same-day

delivery within London and next-day delivery nationwide, cater to a niche

market with sophisticated tastes and enough money to afford the very best.

These are people clamouring for instant gratification who insist on

quality as well as convenience. Lobster and others focus on those products

that one would not even look for in the supermarket. They target people

who might not live within striking distance of a shop selling Iranian

caviar or freshly cooked lobsters.

Adding value to drive sales is a key issue with luxury e-tailers.

Something has to set them apart and their unique selling point is crucial.

Whether the route taken is by offering personalised pages, information

about the products, recipes and advice from celebrity chefs, the

competition is hotting up.

But there is more to it than that. Once the ”purchase now” button has been

pushed and the order packed, responsibility is handed over to a carrier.

Roger Biddle of Wessex Provender sees carriers as the biggest potential

threat to e-commerce in this country. Christmas 1999 business increased 30

per cent over 1998, but non-delivered parcels went from nil to 10 per

cent.

Wessex Provender has used the same local carrier, part of a nationwide

network, for two years. Roger Biddle has established what he believes is

an excellent working relationship and, for 51 weeks of the year, has no

problems. But he believes that problems at Christmas are inevitable. Too

much extra business is compressed into too tight a time frame. No carrier

can reasonably be expected to cope. Tell that to the customers, though.

Every one of the parcels ordered was despatched in time for Christmas

delivery. Irate customers expect the supplier to take responsibility and

to select an efficient carrier. No matter that he has done everything

possible to ensure that he has done just that. If the parcel doesn’t

arrive, no matter how aware the customer is that the carrier is at fault,

the buck still stops with the supplier.

Sometimes the situation can be retrieved, but there is a cost. Wessex

Provender offered all disappointed customers a 10 per cent discount on

their next order and most accepted with alacrity. Next Christmas, Biddle

says he will not guarantee pre-Christmas delivery for any parcel

despatched less than four days before the holiday. Which means customers

will have to store and keep their food fresh for longer, selecting with

care those items that they intended to see them through a long holiday

weekend - and possibly going back to the supermarket instead.

Second on Biddle’s list of potential threats to e-commerce is hype.

”Customers think that because they order using the hi-tech, high-speed

facilities of the internet that their entire transaction will be conducted

in the same way. They expect instant delivery, but until food itself can

be downloaded, this isn’t a possibility.”

Small food retailers are still differentiated from supermarkets. In a

world where speed is of the essence and time more precious than ever,

large and small retailers will continue to satisfy different markets, with

different suppliers. A virtual high street, offering choice to customers,

might quite possibly evolve to accommodate both the big and small

players.

Veg-to-table aims to grow online

Bob Oldham launched www.veg-to-table.com at the end of 1999. Watching the

difficulty many British farmers have in getting their products to

customers without selling in bulk to wholesalers or supermarkets, he

decided to take matters into his own hands. ”My objective was to confront

the supermarkets’ stranglehold on produce head-on, creating a direct link

between growers and consumers to ensure freshness for the customer and a

new target market for the farmers,” he says. Bigger margins than are

achievable when selling to wholesalers and retailers was also high on the

agenda.

Similar in principle to organic box schemes, the opportunity to purchase

fresh, seasonal vegetables from small growers has struck a chord with

customers. Contents depend entirely on what is available from independent

growers.

As the number of village shops declines, and the amount of time available

to shop for the produce also becomes more limited, doorstep deliveries

have become increasingly popular.

Two boxes are currently on offer, one an assortment of seasonal

vegetables, the other a traditional potato box. Nationwide deliveries are

made by ANC carriers Monday to Friday. The charge of #8 per box includes

delivery, which means that the actual cost of the vegetables is reasonable

- for example, a recent sample box contained 5kg of potatoes, 1kg each of

onions, carrots and parsnips, one swede and one cabbage.

Veg-to-table started small, but intends to extend both its supplier and

customer base.

To get started, ads were placed in local newspapers seeking growers with

produce to sell. Customers were attracted in the same way. Leaflets were

put through doors and there is still a freephone number for offline

sales.

Then the publicity machine got rolling and the media started taking notice

as sales via the web site got going. In turn, this generated even more

traffic.

Added value on the site takes the form of recipes from the Potato

Council.

Visitors are also encouraged to add their own. Illustrated advice on

storage is provided and credits against future orders are given when

friends are introduced.

The combination of new customers joining every week, and regulars placing

repeat orders, has confirmed that the demand exists. It’s all very basic,

clear and simple - a good proposition, well explained and well on its way

to achieving its objectives.

Butcher carves a niche online

Jack Scaife’s butchers, founded more than 100 years ago in Keighley, West

Yorkshire, launched itself online at the end of 1996.

Chris Battle, proprietor at the time and husband of the original owner’s

granddaughter, says that it got off to a slow start, but then suddenly

took off. Somehow, Britons living abroad were discovering that they could

get delicious, old-fashioned, dry cured bacon delivered directly to their

doors. Within a year, 20 per cent of the company’s business was generated

online with half these orders destined for overseas.

Today, although the business now operates solely online, only 25 per cent

of orders come from abroad as the amount of UK trade has increased so

dramatically.

Customers are taking their internet shopping seriously - the level of

repeat orders proves that they’re not just buying black pudding for its

novelty value, insists Battle.

After spending most of his life behind a counter in the shop and a stall

in Keighley market, Battle is now getting used to dealing with his

customers at the other end of a computer.

The decision to sell the family shop and concentrate on the internet

business was not an easy one to make, but Battle, his wife and their two

daughters came to the decision that the future of the family business lay

in a virtual, rather than an actual shop.

Their initial misgivings about the impersonal nature of the internet have

disappeared as repeat orders keep increasing and opportunities abound for

striking up a dialogue through email. They see customers face-to-face at

shows and then settle down at home to respond to incoming orders.

Asked if there’s a secret to his success, Battle says that while you must

have something to sell, you must also know how to market it. People like

good food and Scaife’s knew that it had it, but had to get its message

across. The site needs to be kept interesting, maintains Battle, but with

no fuss and a bit of humour. Too much fuss and customers disappear before

they hit the checkout. Just because people want the product, you can’t

make it hard for them. The site has to be fast and easy to use.

It’s down to earth, practical advice that might sound obvious, but Battle

is a man who seems to be achieving his objectives - getting good food to a

bigger audience than he would have reached from West Yorkshire without the

web.

Fat end of the wedge: net cheese

Roger Biddle spends much of his free time - in between developing his

high-street delicatessen in Somerset and Wessex Provender, his virtual

delicatessen on the internet - looking at other web sites to see why they

get more visits than he does. He adds new information, looks at ways to

make the site more exciting, and is constantly finding ways to attract new

customers and convince visitors to become purchasers - or at least, to

come back again to browse some more until they do find something they want

to buy.

For someone who saw a 30 per cent increase in his business in the 12

months up to Christmas 1999, Biddle is more frank about the potential

threats than the potential opportunities. Like others practicing

e-commerce, Wessex Provender has seen its share of the overseas market

increase. And like others selling food over the internet, the problems

have increased along with market share.

The restrictions in many countries are either prohibitive or so buried in

bureaucracy that no one knows what they are. Customs officers might

confiscate products for legitimate reasons or more personal ones.

Dispatching a cheese to New Zealand or bacon to the US might be legal, but

if or when it will reach its destination is one of the great unknowns.

While cheese can, technically, be sent to Colorado, for example, when it

takes six weeks to arrive and the Post Office claims that Boulder is such

a small place that it only has one delivery per week, the obstacles can

appear never-ending.

Or when another cheddar, sent as a gift to New Zealand, is impounded on

the grounds that it isn’t commercially packaged, you could be forgiven for

giving up.

There are, of course, good times to be had, too. Biddle finds that

customers are more understanding when they have purchased online before.

They are no longer surprised by any problems. Building a relationship can

be rewarding and customer loyalty is an achievable objective.

He admits to occasional twinges of frustration when he knows he did the

best he could and was let down, say, by his delivery firm. But looking at

the site, and reading his newsletter, you see a man dedicated to what he’s

doing and deep down loving nearly every minute of it. Just be careful to

order early next Christmas.