Produced In Kent Launches 'Help Kent Buy Local'
Help Kent Buy Local is a campaign set up by Produced in Kent to support and promote the many independent local businesses working incredibly hard to grow, produce, prepare, sell and deliver food and drink to the Kent community during the Covid19 crisis
Photo by Iñigo De la Maza
The new website www.helpkentbuylocal.co.uk is live today, showing customers which local food and drink businesses are still operating. All businesses can list their services on the site for free.
The membership organisation is deliberately reaching out to all businesses in the food and drink sector, members as well as non-members of the trade support organisation Produced in Kent.
“In these extraordinary times it is so important that we support each other and work together," says Floortje Hoette, Chief Executive of Produced in Kent. “We have created this new site to connect the businesses with the consumers, as well as other businesses. Every single business across Kent needs some sort of support right now and we are here to help all these businesses to stay afloat, by facilitating customers’ access to good local food.
“If anything good was to come out of this very challenging period, it is a higher public awareness of the fantastic food supplied by your local butcher, the farm shops, the bakers and the village shops , not forgetting the doorstep deliveries made by the local dairy farms.
“We must all make an effort to buy local, not just now, but also when Covid19 is no longer dominating our daily lives.”
Mindful of the Government’s restrictions on movement, Produced in Kent has joined hands with Digitalbeans, a leading digital agency based in Canterbury, who has launched a free website solution called YourLocal.Delivery. It will help local businesses in Kent launch their own online store, making it easy for customers to buy local and stay safe.
Hoette adds: “Produced in Kent will use its website, social media and its weekly #HelpkentBuyLocal e- newsletter to share ‘positive news’ stories about all the amazing initiatives that are being undertaken by the many hard-working businesses. Kent is showing its true community spirit, through free home deliveries to self-isolators, veggie boxes for key workers and an army of volunteers, helping out where they can. We urge all Kent residents to #helpkentbuylocal!”
#helpkentbuylocal