Nothing beats face-to-face shopping

Home deliveries of food have changed the way we shop, but at what price?

- Joanna Blythman

I was ever so grateful for online shopping during the lockdown. What a relief it was to avoid those socially-distanced queues. And the opportunity to support small producers was an added bonus. Restaurants closed almost overnight, plunging their suppliers into crisis. Cheesemakers, for instance, reported a terrifying 80-90 per cent slump in sales. Fish merchants lost the chefs who normally snapped up most of their catch. It made me happy to think that ordinary retail customers, like me, could help them survive the crisis – especially my favourite self-employed chocolatier. Never before has scoffing chocolate felt like a social service.

There were other benefits. I sent boxes of cheese, chicken, and charcuterie to family as a way of saying that I was thinking of them, even if we couldn’t be together. I struck up a rapport with the driver who delivers to our patch from the major courier service. Our fleeting waves, smiles, and on my part, expressions of gratitude, improved lockdown life. I don’t think we’d even have noticed each other otherwise.