LOCAL FOOD HEROES - GIDDENS & THOMPSON

Simon Thompson & Chris Giddens outside their temporarily closed greengrocers on Earsham Street.

We’ve already featured one brilliant Earsham Street retailer, Michelle Steele at the renowned deli but her greengrocer neighbours, Giddens and Thompson are also a more than worthy inclusion.

Simon Thompson and Chris Giddens have taken Bungay by storm. They are now the town’s sole independent providers of a full range of fantastic quality fresh fruit, veg, herbs and spices. Their shop is a perfect complement to the street and, with their loyal team, offer peerless, friendly service. This has never been more evident than in the last few weeks. The commitment and energy they’ve invested in continuing to supply their goods to customers is to their absolute credit.

We’ll let Simon pick it up from here….

Simon Thompson loading his van full of orders outside the G&T/Bungay Community Centre packing HQ.

Who are you and what’s the name of your business?

I’m Simon Thompson and my business is Giddens and Thompson Greengrocers. It’s run as a partnership with my ‘hubby-to-be’ Chris Giddens (it’s only taken us 14 years to decide to get hitched!!).  He owns the property and makes me the best food in the world to come home to, but I run the business day-to-day.

Where are you based, what do you do and how long have you been in business?

The shop is on Earsham Street in Bungay. It’s a street we’re all very proud of as it is home to some other fabulous food shops and the whole street only houses small independent businesses. We are a greengrocers, pure and simple, selling the best quality fruit and veg we can get hold of. Our emphasis is always on local and seasonal where possible.  We opened on the 15th May 2014, so will soon be celebrating our 6th birthday!

With hundreds of orders to fulfil, time is of the essence for the team at Giddens & Thompson.

Tell us the story of why and how you started…

I’ve worked in the service industry in one form or another for most of my life.  It’s probably a bit cheesy to say these days but I am a “people's person” and I always will be.  I love and am committed to providing the best service possible in whatever I do.  It makes me happy to make others happy (cringeworthy but true!).  I know how much I appreciate it when I go into another business and whoever is serving me is friendly, confident and proud of their work and this is the service I hope we provide at G&T.

So just over 8 years ago, Chris and I had decided to buy a house together in Bungay (where I had been living since 1997).  I had decided to back away from being a Project Manager in London (and all the commuting between Suffolk and London!).  I thought I’d take some time away from work to decide what my next ‘project’ would be.  I was thinking I might actually get on with writing a book about growing up in a hippy commune! However, life had other plans for me as I ended up helping out occasionally in The Little Green Wholefood Shop, a business which I had set up in 2002, the same time I became a dad to my wonderful daughter Ella, but sold the business 2 years later in 2004.  I loved being back in a retail setting and connecting once again with the fabulous community that Bungay has.

Chris and I heard, independently from each other, that the greengrocers operating at that time in Bungay, was closing down. Bizarrely we sent each other text messages that crossed in the ether at exactly the same moment, basically saying “hey maybe we should open a fruit and veg shop!”  So almost 10 years exactly from selling the wholefood shop I found myself back in the world of retail, this time selling something that Chris and I are both really passionate about; fresh natural ingredients which we know the provenance of.

What would you normally being doing at this time of year and how is it different under the current lockdown situation?

Normally at this time of year we would have an amazing display of potted herbs outside the front of our shop.  It feels so sad that we can’t do it this year.  We’re suggesting that customers go directly to our supplier ‘George’s Gorgeous Gardens’ as he is based locally up at Earsham Hall and is happy to deliver.

Asparagus season is in full swing and it won’t be long before we get scrumptious local strawberries in. It’s just a shame we can’t showcase them in our displays like we would do normally. We try to keep our customers abreast of what’s new and available via social media as much as possible.

A special Giddens & Thompson order amongst the tonnes of fresh produce being packed everyday.

What challenges have you faced and how have you met them in order to keep business moving?

We realised very quickly that we couldn’t keep the shop open to walk-in customers.  It’s only a small shop and it wasn’t possible for staff and customers to keep a safe 2m distance from each other.  I had to very quickly find a much bigger venue to cope with a team of staff and volunteers packing up all the orders that started to flood in, especially when so many people had started to self-isolate and needed deliveries. So we moved the whole operation to the Community Centre.  

It’s been a steep learning curve and we adapt on a daily basis, but we’ve got some good systems in place to cope with a massive increase in orders and a whole new way of working. With a bit of luck I should have a website with online ordering in place very soon, which will alleviate the stress of needing to respond to a huge volume of email enquiries and orders everyday. It will also collate the quantities of produce ordered by customers, which will then make orders with my suppliers much more accurate. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for years, but sadly it took a crisis like this to kick my derriere into gear!

To deal with the challenge of having my wages bill quadruple, now that every single order has to be packed by (mostly) paid staff, I’ve introduced a modest ‘packing/delivery’ charge to every order. It’s been heartening that all our customers have accepted this without a problem. 

It’s really important for me to say how amazing our staff have been.  They have met the challenges and additional workload without flinching.  We know how lucky we are to have such great people working for us, but it’s at times like this that we realise just how amazing our little team is.

Unloading newly packed orders for collection from Giddens & Thompson.

Have you discovered any benefits or positive effects of this new way of thinking about your business?

It’s easy to get stuck in the same way of doing things, when you do them day in and day out.  The massive challenge that this health crisis has presented to us as a business has made me look afresh at how we operate and at what we can do differently. Certainly having an online ordering system in place is something very exciting and will no doubt present us with a set of new challenges we need to adapt to. For example, we used to make up a limited number of veg box orders from the back of the shop, but, once we can no longer use the community centre, if we get a bigger volume of orders online as planned, we are going to need an additional space to pack the orders and meet this demand.  

Mid-unloading at Giddens and Thompson.

What are you looking forward to most when this ends?

A holiday!!!!

A more efficient business, without losing the aspects of why customers chose to shop with us in the first place.

Knowing that a growing number of people will have learnt that shopping local has benefits on so many levels; better produce, great service, getting the right quantities, less packaging, provenance, supporting the community they live in.

I’ve already said how lucky we are to have such wonderful employees, but I also want to say that we couldn’t have met the challenges that this virus has thrown at our business without the help of our community supporting us. This is especially of the volunteers who have joined our merry band to either help pack orders or drive many miles doing all the deliveries, so a big THANK YOU to them.

Last, but by no means least, thank you Simon for putting this project together, it’s exactly the kind of involvement that shows why this little area of the world is so special and why we we all love living and working here.

Simon & Chris with their incredible team - at a distance!

All photos were taken observing strict social distancing measures in minimal time.