The Peppermaster’s Covidity Response

From a bustling little shop in a small village in Quebec to nothing. In 2 days. Walk-in retail traffic stopped, our major spring show revenues cancelled, and future orders reduced. 2 days!! None of my bills have stopped though. We have calculated that our business response must anticipate a severe decrease in business revenues of upwards of 95% for a period of 2-4 months, and further anticipate that it might take upwards of one full year to recover these losses. Oh, and we are in the middle of installing and paying for new equipment to improve our production capacity. What a week for a tiny business. From having the best start to our year since our beginnings in 2003 to facing down imminent disaster on multiple fronts. This could kill lesser beings; it might kill us. Our mission has always been: "Finding Fun honourably by surprising palates and expanding minds with the flavour of Pepperfire" What is Pepperfire though? Not just about physical things but it's an attitude of hope and an expectation of a positive outcome that benefits all. How do we move forward? We always use the same process. Stay calm. Identify the issues. Play with projections. Put a plan in place to mitigate damage or adapt in some way. Step forward without fear. The first step is pretty tricky when there is an Aspie like me in the house, but Greg is a rock of spiritual grounding, so, step one was to get me calm, and then we could move forward. Which we are doing. So, here's what we've put together. It's not perfect, it doesn't have to be. Perfection comes with time: It just has to be FAST. (Quoting a Newf, who just happens to be the UNs top guy on Covid 19). We are tackling this situation on three fronts. Direct to retail -- Sanitization procedures in our shop. ---- We have instigated a sterilization procedure after every client leaves. ---- Food sampling becomes one sided. The clerk will serve the sample, preventing the sample bottles being touched by the visitor. ---- We are encouraging the use of contactless payment or payment by email. -- Revenues from our Spring shows eliminated ---- One of a Kind Show, Toronto - Cancelled ---- Expo Manger Santé, Montreal - Cancelled -- Visits to our shop are down 90%. This tells us that our customers are appropriately, social distancing, to protect us all. -- We are implementing new programs and free product as inducements to encourage customers to continue to visit our store. Website -- We have dropped our free shipping from a $100 minimum to $40 -- We are offering a free product inducement to encourage larger average purchases -- Covidity coupons to encourage active purchasing and track when the coupon was issued Commercial Activity -- hit to cash flow - ---- One of a Kind Show, Toronto $15,000 ---- Expo Manger Santé, Montreal $5,000 Our Artisan Supply Chains -- Major client number one, has had their place of business shut down until July creating a probale loss of over $100,000 to his business and $30,000 to ours. -- Major client number two, has had their distributor warn them to anticipate a 50% loss in orders over the next six months. Creating another loss of $100,000 to his business and $30,000 to ours. These revenue crashes must be considered when plotting a pathway through this. Complicating the issue, we have four major new clients just coming on stream bringing additional revenues of over $200,000 in the next six months. We must have greater line of credit in order to pay down our immediate payables. With no revenues we will be unable to pay our current debt to our suppliers and as a result, credit from our suppliers will also be halted. If we cannot get our new equipment hooked up, and have our production continue we will have to shut down as a result of the pandemic. These new product launches may be delayed or possibly have less impact on their markets than were originally projected. Assuming we lose no more than one employee per month, we will continue to have the manpower required to stay in business. Supply chain interruptions; unknown -- Glass and packaging supplies -- currently interrupted. Whole fresh food supply interruptions; -- dramatic price increases, some commodities up 50% now. -- unavailability of certain products -- disruptions of Italian tomatoes and fresh US produce likely to show up in only a week or two. Employees We had 9 people fully employed We have laid off one employee and put another one on call. The last thing we want to do is lay off more employees.... Plan B is the Soup Kitchen. If you hear anything sbout s Soup Kitchen then you'll know that Plan A has failed. What is Plan A? Steady as she goes; just keep making more product, juggle until we can't make product or juggle anymore. So, help us with Plan A. We have created the Covidity Package, and the Covidity Coupon, to incite you to help us ensure we stay in business long enough to survive this pandemic. Covidity:

Covidity. Co = Together Vid = See ity = Adjective suffix describing the active state of the noun. Covidity. Seeing together the current state or condition of what we see together: We see the future of our community, society, nation, and humanity.

If you have any suggestions or a better way to help, please don't hesitate to contact us directly. This one is going to be a doozy of a challenge!