Hello again! It’s been a while…
Hi everyone, Joe from Just Wholefoods here! First of all, apologies that I haven’t been in touch recently – I can’t imagine that hearing from me has been at the top of your priorities given the year that we are all having but still, we probably should have checked in to let you know that at Just Wholefoods, we’re all safe and doing okay!
Where to begin? It is virtually impossible to summarise all of the things that have happened this year and the sheer range of emotions and changes we have all had to go through as a result of ‘C who must not be named’, but what is true is that firstly I have felt enormously proud of our community for protecting our angels at the NHS by staying at home, staying ‘alert’ but most importantly staying safe. At 28 years old, there has not been a period in my life where day to day living has been so drastically altered. But I have also never seen a response anything close to how the British public responded to being confined to their homes. From quizzes and dinner dates over Zoom, to doing shops for vulnerable neighbours and Thursday night applause for the NHS, I simply have not witnessed such incredible resilience, generosity, inventiveness and overall kindness of heart in our communities across the UK. I hope that this is something we remember, as despite the fear of an unknown and deadly enemy, we really showed each other that we care about our fellow human beings.
Secondly, and slightly more relevant to Just Wholefoods, we have witnessed a complete change in our relationship with food. The closure of restaurants and other non-essential businesses in this sector combined with working from home, led families up and down the country to rediscover the art of cooking healthy meals from scratch for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Suddenly, supermarkets were seeing exponential growth in the sales of raw ingredients for everything from baking essentials to grains and pulses – the neglected middle aisles of supermarkets had never seen so much activity. On this basis, we have been kept very busy with people around the world (!) making mountains of our plant-based jelly and lakes of our famous vegan custard, presumably as a dessert to accompany the many falafels and burgers that have also left our factory!
While you, our loyal customers have been keeping us busy (thank you!), it has given us time to reflect on what has been a period of change for the business and has allowed us to focus on what really matters to us, Just Wholefoods. Being a small business, you can sometimes get wrapped up in the everyday activities that keep you so busy and it is easy to occasionally forget the bigger picture. Having time alone with our thoughts has allowed us to re-establish our core values and goals set out 30 years ago when Just Wholefoods was founded.
In the next year and beyond, our mission is to continue our journey along the road of making Just Wholefoods the go-to brand for convenient and healthy organic, plant-based home cooking, but to do so in the most environmentally and socially responsible means possible. It is important, now more than ever to ensure that our products, current and future, are as healthy as possible whilst at the same time actively contributing positively to the environment as well as social causes that we are passionate about. Whilst it is easy to say these things, we keep our promises so please, keep your eyes peeled on our various social media channels and blog for exciting news concerning new products, initiatives, recipes, shows and much, much more, and I promise, it won’t be another year before I am writing to you again!
I hope you all stay well, keep enjoying our products, but most importantly, keep staying safe.
Joe, Director at Just Wholefoods.
