Iain Chambers is community projects manager at The Bevy, an award-winning community pub in Moulsecoomb, owned by local shareholders.
In 2020 he started Brighton Food Factory, making ready meals to address food poverty. That business has pivoted to become a fruit and vegetable wholesaler, travelling East and West Sussex, and Kent.
Since being furloughed from the Bevy during coronavirus, he has been working full-time for Brighton Food Factory, working closely with the remaining staff at the Bevy on the community response. He writes more about his experience at the Brighton Food Factory website.
When did you first notice things changing?
The minute Boris Johnson said don’t go to the pub, we closed the Bevy, because we have vulnerable customers.
That evening we had a committee conference and said: “Let’s just close.” So we closed and deep cleaned, switched what would have been normal social lunches for older people to delivery for older people, an idea we had been piloting with local social workers. The pub developed a hyper-safe delivery programme so each volunteer only visits two or three people.
We know that some of these people are unable to feed themselves or they don’t find it enjoyable, making meals for one. Because we operate from trust rather than on a commercial basis, they trusted us to be safe and we trusted them to pay when they were able to.
What about financially?
The furloughing thing works against community businesses. The Bevy furloughed staff and turned them into volunteers, only to be told that was illegal. It hasn’t got time to waste for the government to catch up. I wish the government would ring some trusted people and find out what their policy means before they implement it.
So we just went into action. If you move at the speed of trust you can move ever so quickly. If you have the mindset that you have to get everything completely right before you do it, it will take too long.
If you move at the speed of trust you can move ever so quickly.
We told a local charity, The Chalk Cliff Trust, what we wanted to do and some money was in our bank account the next day. At a microlevel, people are using trust.
What other organisations are you working with?
Because we operate at a community level, we are connected to the church, the schools, the food bank and the table tennis club. We had a spaced out community meeting with 30 people mid-March saying we need a volunteer database, we need to split up responsibilities, to see where the gaps are.
Brighton Academy School made the school available. They have given the Bevy their training kitchen and their food-tech teacher Ricky Hodgson is making meals and freezing them. We have one thousand meals in the freezer as reserve and using the Brighton Food Factory and FareShare we can keep them supplied regardless of difficulties in the supply chain.
The fact we have our own fruit and veg wholesaler means that the Bevy can keep supplying. Not only is the Bevy a community business, it’s a connecting business. These are literally five minute conversations: “Can you do A, B and C?”
“Yes.” That’s it.
What’s challenging?
Morale. As the deaths rise and the infections spreads, you need to think of things that are morale-boosting without being trite. It needs to be appropriate to your community. A bit of bingo, with the right tech, could be right – but making wild garlic pesto, something like that, it’s not appropriate.
If you look at trust as stock, the people who are trusted by their social clubs, their stock is very high, and they can bestow that trust on other people. They might say: “A new person is coming round but you can trust them, because you trust me.”
Missing the pub? Then why not join our first ever online quiz in association with @DeafCOG this Thursday 8pm just after we’ve finished clapping for the NHS. Register here https://t.co/zZY8kqaGjQ Cheers
— Bevendean Co-op Pub (@thebevy) April 28, 2020
If you’re a commercial business like Wetherspoons, you’re sorted. Everyone is going to be paid. In Brighton, most places are not just closed but boarded up for looting potential – especially the bigger places with more money.
But the Bevy lives at the edge. We’re not really interested in profit. Profit is the thing that keeps the door open and everyone paid, but no one gets excited about profit. We’re in a low income area. People don’t eat out three or four times a week and they don’t spend much when they do. But everyone here is chomping at the bit, all the staff want to know what they can do.
We’re a small part of the economy. But don’t forget that these businesses operate in a way that is closer to a service than a traditional business. But because we can move faster we show what can be done.
