Welcome to our Autumn Newsletter!
We farewell the Summer that has been a challenge in many ways for many people.
We have had quite the roller coaster ride with the weather. Here in Victoria not many places could hide from the fires. All we could do is to be as prepared as we can be. So far we scraped by but as we all know it’s not „if“ but „when“ it will be us. Our farm is very close to potential danger.
And then came the rain, hard and fast with flooding and all the trimmings. Thunder, hail and storm damage. We thought that would be the lot to bear but no, there is more....
The „Virus“ was third in line and it wrecks havoc with everyone around the nation and world.
No escape plan can save us, it is around us and only being sensible in our daily activities can contain it for longer. The impact on all of us (and all other businesses) is immense and it started very early. With shortages of equipment deliveries to produce and now cancellations of our main sales outlets, the Farmers Markets.
The planned Autumn release of new products will not happen in an official way this time because of these shortages. We are unable to produce high enough numbers as panic shopping takes place everywhere. So we are relying on the produce already in storage.
As we loose our main income with the shutdown of Farmers Markets we gave our Online shop a makeover.
We initially excluded shipping of bottles as the rough handling by delivery companies damaged our products and created huge disappointments, financial loss and great additional work to lodge a claim with the delivery company. Lower delivery prices obviously wasn’t everything, so we reversed back to Australia Post, that cost more but „seems“ to be safer.
With the current situation of losing markets as an income stream we added all items to our Online Shop, including bottles.
But there is a little restriction. If you choose to order bottled products e.g. Elderberry Syrup or BBQ Sauces, you do so at your own risk.
Bottles seem to be very fragile. If it breaks in transit it is at your own discretion to make a claim with Australia Post. Insurance up to $100 is by default included in the shipping cost.
For all our other products will we take care if something breaks during transit.
We decided to ship with Australia Post, and yes it is more expensive, but so far so good. We haven’t had broken glasses and we do take great care in packaging our products.
Running a business cost immensely and we have to sell to stay afloat or shut down, it is as simple as that.
All our Ballarat customers have the opportunity to enjoy free delivery.
Now back to our releases: