How we’re adapting during Covid-19

As we enter another three weeks of the nationwide lockdown, at Roberts we’re seeing some interesting changes and some steady trends.

We’ve been able to adapt to our new working measures. Our office staff and other members of the Roberts team have moved to working from home, but rest assured our sales team are primed for answering queries and taking orders.

On the factory floor we’ve moved into split shifts and split breaks to spread out staff and put in place social distancing measures, but we continue to operate 24 hours a day as normal.

We don’t expect our production to be affected in April, May or June but if shops are unable to reopen and the lock down is extended, then we may see the orders we receive slow down.  However, we certainly have the capacity to keep up with any orders we do receive, and our raw materials, decoration and component suppliers continue to supply us as normal.

Thankfully, we’ve not had any known cases of the virus amongst our team, but as a safety measure, we’ve asked high risk personnel to stay at home.

We have noticed the potential return of customers who have previously been sourcing their packaging needs from Far East suppliers, but perhaps there is less appreciation that the more obscure tooling and machinery isn’t always available at this moment. In fact even in ‘normal’ operating times, the Roberts engineering team often hand-build bespoke plant simply because the machinery required is unavailable for purchase.

This current period has certainly shone a light on how important packaging is in facilitating the supply of essential and non-essential goods. In many cases it is almost as important as the actual product itself – ultimately, you can’t eat canned vegetables if there aren’t cans available or use hand sanitizer if containers are in short supply.