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Holly Wilson’s
From The Frontline Happy new year everyone! I hope you all managed some well-deserved time off over the holiday. We all managed to stay healthy and had a nice big family Christmas which was a true joy!
New shoots T
he couple of weeks before Christmas saw Covid run riot through our staff. Shop cover got a bit tight in places, but we managed to stay open all the way through until Christmas Eve, which feels like a pretty good achievement! I was left on my own on Christmas Eve in Prep when I was due to have four of us in, so I had to rope in my partner who hasn’t worked in a shop since his teenage days at Waitrose. He survived and we managed to have a pretty successful day! Sales were good with lots of customer support, but lack of stock and deliveries certainly put a slight dent in the figures. However, looking back at the year and the challenges we have all faced I feel pretty proud of where we ended up. We survived, our sales were good, we hustled for stock wherever we could; we almost started to understand the import process and our customers were happy. Maybe not the highest of aspirations, but at this moment I’ll take it. So, with fresh eyes we are taking on the new year. We are closing both stores for stock take and a quick lick of paint at the end of January once things start to get quiet again. Once that is done, we can crack on with restocking and resourcing. We have learnt a lot over the last year regarding sourcing from Europe and we are definitely having to relook at our supply base. With prices increasing across the board due to raw materials costs, labour and shipping, some of the duty costs are just becoming a
step too far and making products prohibitively expensive. I’m also going to try and work hard on the website and make sure it is kept up to date and push it further as last year it just ticked along. We were really hoping to be able to return to the shows this year. Above: Santa superstar: Holly and her Christmas Eve recruit. Left: New window to start the new year at Prep in Stoke Newington. Bottom left: Holly is involved in the ‘See you in Stokey’ campaign and hopes to rejuvenate a local garden for the community.
We hadn’t been to Ambiente for three years and we were excited to go and spend days wandering the halls and refreshing our ranges (with the odd frankfurter along the way obvz, and maybe some fizz). Instead, we will have to do our sourcing from the comfort of my sofa. We are spending time scouring the internet and Instagram to find new brands and products, which is lovely but is not quite as efficient as
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having it all laid out for you at a show. Hopefully though it will lead to a bit more diversity in our stock as we will all be pulling from different resources. I’m also having to rehire staff at Prep as people move on to pastures new, but it feels like a good time to get someone new in as we start the year. I love to hire local people where possible. They understand the customer better and have local knowledge and it goes along with the shop family we have. We are also starting up our Stokey business association again so that we can apply to Hackney council for some more of the funding that is available. We are using it to further our ‘See you in Stokey’ campaign and as a part of that we are pitching to use funds to revamp some of the communal gardens around Stokey to make them a brighter and more fun place to hang out. They are currently run down and therefore underused. It feels so positive to be working on this community side along with the other traders and the team spirit is really uplifting. When trade feels hard, and costs and supply are such a depressing conversation, the light that this brings reminds me why I love having a local independent shop. Holly Wilson is the owner of two award winning North London cookshops: Prep in Stoke Newington and Richard Dare in Primrose Hill.