FAST FOOD drive-thru's may have closed up shop during the current pandemic, but there is a new drive-thru in town and it’s already serving the community of Stirling.

Falleninch Farm Butchers has reinvented itself in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has left its food service offering defunct, but its online butchers service more popular than ever, which is what prompted the new contactless pick up point on the farm.

Owner Andrew Hornall told The SF that ‘practically overnight’ they had to restructure their entire business to comply with the ever-evolving government guidelines and restrictions.

“We never expected there to be such a surge in demand from online customers – it’s been a phenomenal past two weeks of panic buying. We have had to think quickly to remodel ourselves and modify our product lines to maximise the essentials for the public at this time. People are beginning to realise fennel sausages might be on the backseat, with the focus turning to staples such as mince and stew over the next while," he continued.

“We were lucky that we already had vans kitted up and ready to deliver, so when the catering side of our business went defunct, our team had four vans sitting there ready to start delivering directly to the public,” he explained.

Last Saturday, March 28, Falleninch farm launched its drive-thru service, so customers can order and pay online for their meat and then drive to a dedicated online collection lane at the farm, where their order will be brought out and put into their boot.

"Our farm shop is still open onsite but this new service offers us all another level of protection where there is no need to get out of the car and there is no direct contact with our team – keeping everyone healthy is our number one priority," Andrew continued. "There is now a dedicated lane for collections only that is open from 10am till 3pm Monday to Friday. We have also been dedicating 7am to 9am in our farm shop for NHS,Emergency Service and frontline workers in the fight to defeat covid-19.

"This is a difficult time for everyone who is having to adjust to new ways of working and restrictions on daily life, but we are working extremely hard to feed the nation and I am so thankful to all of the fantastic team we have here who have risen to every challenge which has been thrown at them."

Andrew went on to say that there are some positives which might come out of this crisis in regards to consumers' relationship with food and farming: “We are likely to see a return to family values of cooking and eating together as a family around the table. We have been putting up recipe suggestions online to accompany our ingredients and we hope there will be a move away from the ‘ready meal phenomenon’, as people begin to realise the value they can get out of 2lb of mince from the butchers.

"No matter what negativity has been thrown at the farming community prior to this crisis, I think the public associates farms with clean air, earthy smells and a sense of security that farmers are the experts in producing food from the land and feeding the nation. Hopefully the public will have a renewed respect from where there food comes after we are through this disaster," he concluded.

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