Covid-19 Preparations - updated March 18th
* Please scroll down for further updates
People are at the heart of everything we do. While beer is our preferred vehicle, our offerings centre around relaxing, inspiring, and truly great experiences.
We are powered by a growing team of creative, committed, warm and kind-hearted folks, who give their all to ensure our beer is enjoyed by thousands of people the world over and to ensure our tap rooms provide safe spaces where a wide spectrum of folks can kick back, relax and enjoy each other’s company.
With this comes a responsibility to look after the health and safety of staff, customers and the wider community around us - something which has come into sharper focus in the wake of the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak in this country.
By now, most of you will be aware of the threat posed by coronavirus and the potential for its further spread. Although the impact on the UK currently remains low, Public Health England (PHE) believes that widespread transmission of coronavirus in the UK is now "highly likely", while health experts have also warned that a worst-case scenario is looking increasingly likely as the virus continues to spread and new outbreaks occur in countries worldwide.
We feel strongly that we wouldn’t be staying true to our human-centred values if we didn’t pay close attention to advice from Public Health England, the ECDC, and the WHO to play our part in helping look after the people in our team and around us that are known to be vulnerable to serious risks to their health from Covid-19.
So, last week we conducted our first outbreak preparation meeting, focusing on steps we could take to:
Best protect our customers and retail staff while remaining open and fully operational.
Plan for how to respond to any acute local outbreaks that could affect the operation of our business from self-retail, online, to wholesale.
Minimise catastrophically-damaging risks to our business from any dramatic reduction in, or complete cessation of, the wholesale, self-retail, or online arms of our business.
The health of colleagues, friends, family, loved ones and the wider community is our main concern. By maintaining the highest hygiene standards and sharing official advice with our staff and customers, we hope we can play our role in limiting the spread of Covid-19.
But it is also crucial for us to consider the threat to our business posed by a serious outbreak. The OECD is already predicting a sharp slowdown in economic growth but further disruption appears likely and consumer confidence could be seriously shaken. For a small business like ours, which relies heavily on national and supplementary international trade, this is a major concern and we feel it is absolutely necessary to put measures in place that will allow us to adapt quickly to any changes and better serve our customers in the medium to long term.
The reality is that nobody can predict exactly how the global Covid-19 outbreak will progress from here, so we have identified several levels of action that we might need to take, depending on the severity of the situation.
Our tap rooms
We want both Unit 9 and 73 Enid Street to continue being places where you can escape from the stresses of everyday life, enjoy deep relaxation, have fun and spend quality time with friends and loved ones.
The simple pleasure of whiling away an hour or two with a beer in your hand has already become more complicated in several countries. For example, containment strategies in Italy have forced bars and restaurants to open only within prescribed hours and restaurants in Hong Kong have taken the difficult decision to close until the Covid-19 outbreak is under greater control.
We want to avoid any impact on your valuable down time, so we’ve taken a number of small but significant measures to ensure you can continue to kick back and enjoy our tap rooms with the peace of mind that your wellbeing has been carefully considered.
So we’ve issued all retail staff at both sites with the following mandatory service protocol, in order to best ensure your comfort and relaxation:
No touching of your face, eyes, hair, head, beard or any other body part while on shift. If you need to do so, hands must be washed and sanitised immediately afterwards.
Do not collect glasses from tables (to maximise your social distance) - encourage customers to return glassware to the glass wash trays on the bar. If customers leave glasses you must wear disposable gloves to collect them and dispose of gloves immediately upon returning to the bar.
No hands in glasses, even when wearing gloves. Avoid all contact with the rim of glasses even when handling into dishwasher trays.
Wash hands regularly and dry using blue roll, dispose of blue roll after drying. Do not use a towel. If you suffer from sensitive skin wear disposable gloves and wash these regularly, as you would your hands.
Ensure hand sanitiser (+60% ethanol) is available everywhere that staff might need it; office desk, at each till, in the kitchen, behind the bar in the shop area.
Wash and sanitise hands before serving every customer.
No drinking from the same glass as anyone else.
Contain any cough or sneeze into a tissue, binned immediately, or into the pit of your elbow.
Report any feelings of ill-health to your manager as soon as possible.
In addition to the steps taken at both sites above, the following steps are being taken at Unit 9 this week:
Increased ventilation via our Systemair fresh air exchange unit.• Reduced capacity at our busiest times by 10% to 90 people on our mezzanine, 35 people at Track’s pop-up downstairs. This allows each customer a comfortable degree of personal space, within a ventilated, open plan warehouse.
Increased signage advising ill customers not to enter, and reminding all customers to contain coughs and sneezes, dispose of tissues immediately, wash hands, and contact 111 if they are experiencing any of the symptoms of Covid-19.
Risks And Wider Business Preparations
In conversation with our importers in areas that have suffered a recent outbreak, we have learned that food and beverage trade has dropped by as much as 50% in recent weeks, largely due to well-routined social-distancing practices borne from numerous contagious outbreaks over recent decades in Asia, along with robust responses from governments and health bodies worldwide.
We are concerned, that in the case of any sustained outbreak here in the UK, that draft sales are likely to suffer first and most fully, in the event that drinkers choose to spend more time at home, and less time in pubs and bars. We will not find ourselves eager to advise against actions drinkers feel they need to take in the event of any advice to reduce social-contact. Consequently, we are working to ready ourselves to slow the production of draft beer kegs, and put additional volume into cans. We hope to offset any slight drop in draft sales in the coming weeks with additional online and take-out sales, with updates to our direct-to-customer sales strategy as and when we feel it is necessary.
Brewing is not only a capital-intensive business to set up, it is a cash-dependent business to run. Our last option in pursuit of the long term well-being of the brewery is to use up the little cash holding we currently have to bolster any significant loss in sales or profit. Under the most difficult circumstances we will request discounts from suppliers and our landlord, whilst we work to accommodate severe reductions of profit margins, but we recognise we are not in a position to accommodate sustained losses, and will work with our team to spread the burden of any reduction of income by proportionately reducing payroll throughout the whole company.
In addition to steps we are taking in our brewery and tap rooms, we are cancelling all company travel arrangements and external event appearances until mid May (though we are still able to ship beer to events throughout the UK, EU, and the rest of the world in between now and then). Whilst we recognise that this will likely give rise to significant disappointment, we look forward to re-assessing company travel and event presence at that time, and seeing you at festivals and events in the near future. We hope you understand our need to focus on our team, our local and wholesale customers, and the well-being of our business as conditions unfold around us, as our utmost priority at this time.
If You Are Our Direct Customer
We wish to encourage you to enjoy our tap rooms as you always have. Please trust that we are employing every measure outlined here and any additional measures we learn or conceive of, with your health and well-being foremost in our minds.
Any additional custom you are able to offer us, by way of increased take-outs, online purchases, or draft sales, will help us weather any upcoming downturn in business, however long term such a downturn lasts.
If You Are Our Wholesale Customer
We are available any time during office hours, Monday to Friday, to talk over concerns you may have about the nature of your business, and the way in which your business may be exposed to risks (draft focused, or take-out focused will likely open up different challenges or opportunities in the days and months to come). We will work to understand and support any decisions you take to mitigate risks to your business, as we endeavour to do the same with our business.
The unpredictable nature of this outbreak leaves us with little option but to respond to changing conditions in a level-headed way, and to advice from health bodies, governments, and eminent scientists around the world. Though cases are being announced and investigated all around us, we are resisting giving rise to panic or pessimism.
Our thoughts go out to the great many people around the world who have lost loved ones, and those that are directly affected by Covid-19. To the brave and selfless medical professionals all around the world, we commend and celebrate your efforts
.
* * * * March 8th 2020 Update * * * *
In the 10 days since our first outbreak preparation meeting on February 27th, confirmed cases of Covid–19 in the UK have risen from 13 to 211, with more than 20,000 people tested. It is important to remember that people currently being tested are only those who have been to a confirmed outbreak area (as listed here), or those who are known to have been in close contact with someone confirmed to have Covid–19. We are highly likely to see confirmed case numbers rise rapidly as testing is applied more widely across society, as previously uncontained community-spreading shows through new cases without contact-tracing links to existing cases, or previously identified connections to outbreak sites.
On Thursday this week we isolated two members of our production staff at home, as a precaution, after signs of illness in one team member arose on Thursday, and known close contact between said team member and a group of people that visited Milan for a large event in mid-February (just before an outbreak in nearby Lombardy region was confirmed). A second member of staff has been isolated as an additional precaution, due to their close and sustained proximity at work to the first member of staff within an office block room currently lacking thorough ventilation.
Though we are confident both members of staff are only suffering from regular seasonal illnesses, we are mindful of our responsibility to take no risks at all, as we continue to work with the health and well-being of our customers, staff at Unit 9 and 73 Enid St, and wider society in mind. We are mindful that our customers might leave our tap rooms, and return home to an immunocompromised housemate, elderly family member, or partner with a long-term medical condition, and therefore we must assume standards and practices that are of the least possible risk to the most vulnerable amongst us.
We are in the process of adjusting working practices to eliminate as much close-contact at work as possible, and are ensuring that none of our staff work in unventilated spaces. In order to maximise work-based social-distancing, we will ask brewery staff that are able and comfortable to do so, to transition to working from home in the days to come.
From today, both our retail sites are increasing ventilation by ensuring doors and windows are left open at all times during opening hours. Though this may lower the temperature slightly at 73 Enid St, we hope you’ll feel even more confident that we are prioritising your health and well-being in every way we currently can.
We would like to stress that as confirmed case numbers grow, it can seem as though individual efforts (containing coughs and sneezes, washing hands for 20 seconds with soap, eliminating physical contact, and increasing social-distancing) require less urgent attention, or are maybe lacking previously stated effectiveness. It is worth noting that eminent scientists, medics, and other experts around the world are redoubling their efforts to help us not only feel a level of personal responsibility, but to engage in impactful changes to our personal behaviour that has been shown to be effective against outbreaks spreading. We are grateful to governments, health bodies, medical professionals, and the people of China, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Vietnam, for the examples they have set so far in containment and social adjustments.
We would like to encourage our wholesale and retail customers to consider all the changes they can make immediately and in the short term (staff personal hygiene training, signage, doors and windows open for adequate ventilation, etc), to afford staff and customers alike the greatest confidence that their well-being is of the utmost concern to the industry.
• • • • March 13th Update • • • •
This past week has seen an unprecedented rise in confirmed cases in Italy, with little time before the healthcare system in affected regions is utterly overwhelmed. Doctors report having to choose which patients in critical care get access to ventilators and hands-on intensive care, and which are left without potentially life-sustaining support. Our hearts go out to healthcare professionals around the world, as their jobs become ever more harrowing and difficult.
In the UK, where we have deployed only 10% of the daily Covid–19 testing capacity seen in Italy and South Korea, our confirmed case numbers appear to be rising only slowly, but this appears to be due to low testing numbers rather than the UK somehow getting away with it. We believe our government’s response to be lacking in factual accuracy (as a result of some of the lowest daily testing numbers in the developed world) and severity (social containment has been remarkably effective, where government advice was determined, clear, and directed towards the well-being of peoples, rather than the well-being of economies).
We have been told that delaying the spread of the virus, to push back a peak in the outbreak until summer months to alleviate pressure on the NHS, is the priority, but that no further immediate changes are currently necessary. We believe the government is leading with conflicting advice. As a result we are taking further steps to try to ensure the safety and well-being of our staff, tap room customers, and business.
Events are being cancelled around the world in an effort to promote a semblance of the social distancing that has been so effective in containing the outbreak in China to Hubei province, and giving rise to far fewer cases in Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong (with all their proximity to the epicentre of the outbreak of this novel coronavirus strain). Whilst we are saddened to see events called off, we are wholly in support of doing so at this time, and until the peak of this pandemic has long passed.
Cloudwater will not attend events of any scale globally, nationally, or locally unless they are: outdoors and in a well ventilated area; set up with provisions to afford staff working events with immediate and constant access to hand-washing facilities and serviced bathrooms; risk assessed with regard to the exposure of attendees, staff, and any volunteers to surface, droplet, and airborne contaminants.
We are taking further immediate steps to better serve our customers at both our retail sites. From opening time today, we have reduced capacity of both retail sites further, down to 50% - 50 people on our mezzanine in Unit 9, 20 people downstairs at Unit 9 in Track’s pop-up tap room, and 50 people in 73 Enid St. In addition to this further reduction in capacity, aimed at maximizing social distancing, we will close both retail sites 30 minutes earlier each day, to undertake a full surface clean and sterilization. Drinking up time will commence 15 minutes before these new earlier closing times.
Each evening from here on out, our new sterilisation routine (all surfaces you are likely to make hand contact with have been cleaned with a soap solution and/or 0.5% PAA) will be undertaken with exhaustive attention to detail, in an effort to ensure your safety during your time with us. In addition, we will conduct more frequent table cleaning during our opening times.
Please note our new hours below for Unit 9:
Monday—Thursday 15:00—21:30
Friday 12:00—22:30
Saturday 10:00—22:30
Sunday 12:00—19:30
Please note our new hours below for 73 Enid St:
Wednesday—Friday 15:00—21:30
Saturday 12:00—21:30
Sunday 12:00—19:30
At the brewery, we are planning for the worst case, and increasingly-likely scenarios. All food and beverage businesses are extremely vulnerable to any slow downs in consumption, and breweries are no different. We unfortunately believe that the next weeks will see a great many of our peers’ breweries, and customers' retail and bar sites suffer immensely. We fear incredible stress will bear down on a great many good people in brewing, distribution, and beer retail, as they face dwindling demands. Should the UK experience the drop off in demands that we have seen elsewhere in the world, many businesses will be at risk of closure.
Please, if you are planning to visit any establishments now or in the immediate future, go out of your way to support your local bottle shop, bar, taproom, and brewery. Go the extra distance to support your local bookshop, greengrocer, and bakery. We can only assume other small businesses are in a similar position, and find themselves with at best a few weeks capacity to struggle through a sharp downturn, before any significant reduction in businesses threatens their survival.
The next steps for us to take, as soon as we feel they are necessary, and not based only government advice, will be:
Agreement from all staff not to visit any enclosed spaces without seeing adequate plans and procedures in place for ventilation, santisation, personal hygiene, etc.
Promotion of beer through our online shop (still the best way you can support us at this time, and in the near future)
Full closure of draft sales at both retail sites, with a pivot towards take-out sales only
A reduction in the production of draft beer (we predict a drop of over 50% in draft beer demand in the coming weeks)• Voluntary reductions in salaries, or voluntary redundancies
Partial or complete shutdown of production
Some of us are lucky enough to have adequate clothing, a stack of books we’ve yet to read, music collections we’ve not listened to recently, ideas we’ve not had time to consider fully, relationships we want to deepen, areas we’ve yet to explore, jobs at home we’ve not been able to get to, meditation or other awareness practices we can’t seem to find the time for. There are countless ways in which a great many of us can dramatically reduce our cost of living, and share resources and experiences with others that reduces expenditure. We are urging our team to engage in every possible saving and cost reduction strategy right now. In the medium or short term, should we be faced with reducing salaries (to stave off redundancies), early adaptations will serve our team and business well.
If you work in beer, often a luxury, entertainment-centred, indulgent, and non-essential purchase for most, you must, without any delay, make every plan you can for an uncomfortable reduction of business. Please, do not hope for the best without planning for the worst.
• • • • March 18th Update • • • •
As of yesterday, Tuesday the 17th, our tap rooms Unit 9 and 73 Enid Street are operating a take-out service only. We are suspending draft sales and drinking in until further notice, and adjusting the hours of both sites to reflect this.
Please note our new hours below for Unit 9:
Sunday—Friday 12:00—20:00
Saturday 9:00—20:00
You can view the beers that Unit 9 has in stock from us and from guest breweries here.
73 Enid St will now open 7 days a week until further notice. Please note our new hours below for 73 Enid St:
Monday—Friday 13:00—21:00
Saturday 11:00—21:00
Sunday 12:00—18:00
You can view the beers that 73 Enid Street has in stock from us and from guest breweries here.
For the time being, we are still running brewery tours. If you need any further information regarding brewery tours during this period, please e-mail barrelstore@cloudwaterbrew.co or call our Unit 9 team at 0161 278 9029.