Here we are in the middle of this pandemic with all of you.  Really strange and surreal times! I do really hope everyone of you is keeping well and managing to keep some kind of normality in your life at the moment. Here at Monsoon I think we are pretty lucky!  So far so good and we have some sunshine too!

Just before lockdown our biggest worry was how on earth do we keep roasting if one of us gets ill.  How will we supply all the coffee shops/hotels etc?  We knew there would be changes to come but we were slightly off piste!  Within 2 weeks about 90% of our business had gone  as all those businesses we were worried about supplying, had closed!

As I said, we feel very lucky, you see the other great thing for us is that we have always had a small webshop.  We always intended trying to grow it but always seemed too busy with other stuff. Now we have time to try and grow it! All was going well until about a month ago. We were getting busier  online, I was able to keep two full time staff members employed, happy days, then the postal service started to struggle!

Each day we have had more and more and more......non delivery enquiries.  Those who know us know that normally when someone doesn't get their delivery it's a no questions asked new pack sent with our apologies. This is different though.  Royal Mail have assured us that packs will get through, but with delays. They do update their site daily but there ar some serious back logs.  Some customers tell me that their postal service is not affected, I don't think there are many places now that are unaffected.  The link below is for updates.  I speak to my account manager at Royal Mail on a regular basis but things are just not improving.  Mainly not enough staff and too many people posting things!
https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/12556/~/service-update 

I think if you get your coffee in a week you're doing well, most are  about two weeks now. 

Every few days we're changing how we do things here.  We stopped anyone visiting the roastery and stopped markets before any government guidlines were issued. We decided we would send everything via Royal Mail, even local deliveries.

Now we're back to doing as many local deliveries as we can do ourselves and we have reinstated the collect from Monsoon button on our delivery options on the webshop.  If you collect you won't be charged postage.  However, you still cannot collect from the roastery but we have a collection point nearby for locals.
I have plastered all over the website that Royal Mail is not delivering on time.  We still have 1st and 2nd class mailing options available but please be aware that you will have delays!

For those of you who want a quick, guaranteed delivery, take us up on our temporary offer for Special Next Day Delivery.  If you buy 4 bags and pay 1st class post of  £3.70 or 5 -8 bags at £5.57 we will upgrade you at our expense to Special Delivery. Remember you have to buy at least 4 bags though for Special otherwise we can't afford to upgrade you.  Many of you are using this now and I thank you for that!

Thank you too from the bottom of my heart for all the support you have shown our little business. 

Keep well, stay positive and hopefully some of you will be able to visit us again in the not too distant future.

Anne and the Monsoon Team