YOUR INDUSTRY
CONNINGS FOOD MARKET ADAPTS AND THRIVES DESPITE CHALLENGING TIMES Words by Anne Hardie
Back in the old days. Cheryl Conning, owner, picking capsciums
Last year’s first lockdown was loaded with stress for Connings Food Market near Nelson. But when the government announced that the country would once again enter Alert Level 4 on August 17, Connings had its systems ready to go. This time, the rules were clearer about opening for business. It took just two hours for the Conning family’s operation to switch into lockdown mode, with safety measures put in place for staff and customers, allowing the business to open at Alert Level 4. Simon Conning is the second generation to be involved in the family’s market garden business and is in charge of the shop. He says they were fully stocked for the 2020 lockdown, thinking they would be allowed to open, only to be forced to close as the government worked out who could open to the public at Level 4. They turned to home deliveries to deal with the high stock volume in the shop. While it got existing produce out of the shop to customers, it wasn’t efficient or profitable.
42 NZGROWER : OCTOBER 2021
Eventually Connings opened at Level 4 with government guidelines in place. That experience guided its plan of action for ensuing lockdowns.
About half the usual number of customers were in the shop to buy their fruit and vegetables during lockdown, but interestingly, they spent more The food market sits on the edge of Richmond and is part of a family business that involves two generations, growing vegetables from seed in its nursery to be planted out on about 130ha of land where it is harvested for both the shop and the wholesale market. Simon says there was a lot more certainty about the rules this time around when the August 2021 lockdown was announced. The shop was stocked with the knowledge they could open for business, PayWave was installed for the duration
