For Saint Valentines Liquorice Company, 7 Arthurs Hill, Shanklin, PO37 6EW
Dear Customers
As COVID-19 continues to spread across the UK, the coming weeks will be unpredictable and trying for a lot of us. We wanted to reach out to say hello, and that we hope you are doing okay during this tough time.
We are following Government and Public Health Englands guidance regarding Covid-19 and implementing our risk assessment policy.
Packed in Manufacture
Confectionery production is highly automated and very industrialised. It involves very few people, and HSE conditions are very stringent. When we open a box of liquorice here, its the first time that the contents have been in contact with air and the immediate environment since manufacture.
Outers and Boxes
In production, food-grade bags wrap the product. Boxing is automatic, and boxes and placed in outers. Robot pallet loaders handle outers on pallets and wrap in pallet wrap.
Transport
Pallets are loaded with pallet trucks on lorries and shipped from Italy to the UK, sometimes via Denmark. Pallets are offloaded and only then manually handled outers and boxes stacked in ambient air controlled warehouses.
Minimum human contact Covid-19 transmission
Our supplier picks our order manually into shipping outers which are distributed through a distribution hub and onward to our premises. There is human contact, but only a few times.
Quarantine the delivery
We plan our deliveries for Friday, and hold them in an isolated room for a minimum of 72 hours. We disinfect shipping outers when we receive deliveries.
Our Packing room
We adhere to strict and stringent HSE policies to maintain our working environment clean and hygienic. And we carry a 5 Star health and hygiene certificate. We are taking extra precautions now, following NHS guidelines to minimise risk to ourselves and the wider public, including you our customers.
Shipping your order
Royal Mail has advised its employee’s new guidelines to carry out their work, which may affect how you usually receive your deliveries. However, Public Health England (PHE) has advised that people receiving parcels are not at risk of contracting the Coronavirus.
We remain open for online orders, strictly adhering to current government directives. We ship orders on Monday and Friday. Royal Mail, our delivery couriers, are working with slightly restricted service times. Please allow a little more time for your order to arrive than usual.
Royal Mail updates their website regularly, please visit here.
Saint Valentines Liquorice Company
We are a micro family business, with only part-time seasonal workers at our events. At this time of year, we do all the work ourselves. So that is a workforce of two. We already practice social distancing and, although nothing is certain, minimise the risk of spreading this virus Covid-19. These are challenging and unprecedented times for all of us. We hope you stay well and safe.
Erling and Elaine McCracken
Quarantine your packages
We just wanted to share with you some advice on receiving packages safely, which we are following ourselves.
It is basically to quarantine your packages! For 72 hours.
On receiving a package or parcel, place it somewhere where it won’t be touched, then wash your hands for at least 20 seconds (while singing a happy song, obviously!)
Then leave your package for up to 72 hours. Cardboard is okay after 24 hours.
After which you can sing a happy song as you unwrap and enjoy!
Changing our behaviour
We know the advise by now, ” Don’t think about changing your behaviour so you won’t get it, think about changing your behaviour, so you don’t give it to somebody else.” Graham Medley, Professor of Infectious Disease Modelling.
