Inverness hotel becomes food hub doing 3000 collections and deliveries in a month

The good news stories of resilience and innovation are starting to trickle in – thank you to everyone who has sent them our way for us to share on our channels.

This one came in from Cobbs, based in Invernesshire whose portfolio includes 17 properties including hotels, cafes, a brewery, bakery and souvenir shops.

“On lockdown day, our Executive Chef Adam Dwyer and our GM, Arran Mcmaster decided to turn the hotel into a food hub distributing to Inverness area, also collection by car direct to boot.

Delivery is door stop, phoning customers when we arrive to ask them to stay in their house until we drop off the food hampers and a quick call when we’re back in the van. 

Boot collection – when ordering you request a collection slot that’s good for you, you arrive at the hotel and are asked to reverse up to the distribution centre function room ) and then the order is placed in the boot .

Both ways to collect the food are 100% safe as there is no contact whatsoever, making it safe for customers and staff. 

Our booking system HOP, for the hotel bookings has designed a new click and collect shop that’s been added to the hotel web site where you can order a hamper of your choice with add ons for collecting or deliver for extra £5. 

Cobbs has done in a month around 3000 collections and deliveries to locals, many whom are in the vulnerable categories and do not want to go to a supermarket.

Supermarkets are offering two weeks time for their delivery service; we deliver most days and 24 hrs is all we need for collection. 

We are offering value for money – our £95 hamper works out £35 cheaper than supermarkets and contains a huge amount of food . 

All our suppliers are distributing mainly to food service, pubs, hotels etc – their business dried up over night but we are still buying in catering packs and splitting down to smaller household sizes, hence we can push out more cheaply.

We’re reinventing different hampers all the time, starting with the large family hamper, then 1/2 hamper for smaller family or the individual, a meat hamper, vegetable hamper, sanitiser cleaning hamper, most recently bread making hamper with live yeast and strong flour etc.  Next idea is cake making hamper with recipe cards from Cobbs bakery.   

All our advertising has been through social media with zero budget on marketing – it’s been lots of word of mouth, competitions etc.  

We’re looking at the long term on this service and perhaps continuing in a separate area of the hotel grounds.  We would like to see local producers feeding the Loch Ness food hub with electric vans delivering around the area. Individuals seem to like the service and it saves them spending time supermarket shopping and also supports local business too.  

For more pictures and comments go to Loch Ness Country House Hotel FB page or website for the click and collect shop. 

I can’t believe we turned around the function room in 24 hrs and were trading on the 20th March but I suppose with the different functions we have had over the years, the function room is a blank canvas and can be set up for anything! 

I’m MD of Cobbs and proud of the team thinking this one up , everyone benefits!”

– Fraser Campbell, Managing Director – Cobbs