What our customers say

We recently (April 2007) commissioned and carried out a customer satisfaction survey with a random 30% of our previous customers.  This is what they said...

How did you discover The Local Food Company? 
2007 - Nearly 15% found us by local word of mouth and recommendation.  Just over 20% found us as a result of reading about us in the press.  Nearly 65% first found us searching on the internet.

2008 - Word of mouth referral has increased to 30% of our business.  10% from reading about us in press and 60% from searching on internet. 

Are there any other products you would like to stock?  If so what?
2007 - Over 90% said no and that they felt the range was very good.  Individuals listed wine, DIY hampers and multiple packs of cakes (which we now sell), gluten free biscuits, children’s treats and game.  We are looking into these.

2008 - A few people said they would like to be able to buy Clive's pies individually.  At this time we cannot sell individually due to logistics of picking up just a few pies.  We now sell wine, DIY hampers, multiple packs of cakes and biscuits and some game as suggested last year.

Do you feel the quality of the produce was fairly reflected by the pricing? 
2007 - Everyone said yes that pricing was very good value for money.  Two individuals felt that fruit and some of the specialist gluten free cakes were a bit more expensive than they like to pay but agreed generally that pricing was very good. 

2008 - Everyone was happy with pricing of food we sell; many feeling with the service of delivery The Local Food Company offered excellent value for money.

What do you think of our delivery and packaging? 
2007 - Over 95% were very happy with all the delivery options.  The number of days and timings with the option to leave secure and stay cool were ideal, the service was reliable.  95% of people were happy with the cost of delivery charges.  

Everyone except one person was happy with the turn around times; they said that they wanted delivery to always be available within 3 days (if you just miss a deadline on a Tuesday night, you do have to wait until the following week for delivery). 

Over 90% said that carbon offset deliveries was something they would be really keen to have in place in the future.  Over 80% were actually willing to pay an extra fee ranging from 50p to £2.50 as a contribution for the carbon offset of their shopping and delivery.  We have taken comments on board about charges and have decided though we cannot drop costs any lower (we already heavily subsidise local deliveries and also national deliveries to a lesser degree) we have decided to carry the cost of off-setting ourselves.  Delivery is therefore improved value as it now includes an element for offsetting the associated carbon emissions, as calculated independently by Envision.

Everyone was happy with the way things were packaged and our efforts to reuse packaging from our suppliers.  Over 95% of packaging was either collected and re-used by us or re-used/recycled by the customer.  Everyone said they would be willing to post back reusable packaging for us if we credited their accounts with £2.00.  We have now got the samples to test and trial.  They are much more expensive but live on and on whereas our polyboxes are not as green and cannot be sent back to us.  Watch this space.

2008 - 60% surveyed felt the convenience and reliability of the ordering and delivery was worthy of particular note.   Many people return their boxes or we collect them.  We have not used the returnable boxes to date due to cost of postage.

Were you happy with the quality of produce received?
2007 - Many people made comments such as “Everything was really excellent.  You can’t go wrong.”  Over 95% said everything was perfect.  Individuals mentioned not liking sliced bread in the plastic bread bags and one customer said one or two items of fruit was not as they had hoped on one occassion.  We changed fruit and vegetable suppliers some time ago.  Our baker has now stopped using plastic bags too and uses either paper or bio-bags. 

2008 - 60% commented particularly on the excellent quality of the food they received.

What do you think of our links, enews and articles section?
2007 - Almost 50% make use of links and read articles on our site.  Over 90% read and find the enews letter informative and helpful for reminding them to shop.  Most people liked the new product and promotions section and found it kept them up-to-date with what was new on the website.

2008 - not surveyed but mailing list has doubled in size.

What are your overall impressions and memories of shopping with The Local Food Company?
2007 - 100% said very positive things which included “Everyone is always really helpful”, “Highly recommend it and was very impressed with your service and the personal touch. Excellent, well done.” “We’re very happy that we’ve found them”, “The website is really well set out and easy to use”, “Everything is always well packaged”, “Super website”, “Fantastic service”, “Great good and products to try out”, “Really nice staff”, “Great it’s local”, “Good articles to read”, “Great I even voted for them as best ethical company!”, “Very good and really easy to get shopping done”, “I’d recommend them – very good” amongst all the praise. 

Thank you for being so positive in your memories.  We didn’t receive a single negative comment which is always rewarding because getting your shopping experience right and promoting West Country food is our mission.  100% said they planned to shop again.

2008 - 100% said they would recommend us to a friend and were happy with the service they received.  One customer asked us to include unsubscribe on every communication and to make clear they would receive email on the registration page.  Other customers wanted various other changes such as confirmation emails when order dispatched, tracking of order, clearer place to leave messages for gifts, llbs and kgs converter, more cold meat, including a clearer section for writing messages for tags at booking, adding 1lbs and kgs conversion tables,  checking that all hampers have food miles on.  It was also felt that a clearer indication of when customers could have delivery over the Christmas period and adding Christmas opening times to the phone message would be helpful.    These will be considered and added into our service improvement plans.

Ms A Hockings our first ever customer from near Totnes: "We were so pleased to find The Local Food Company website. We have been trying to make sure we shop locally for ages but lack of time made this difficult. The Local Food Company website is so easy and quick to use and the food is fantastic. We order every week and have had brilliant service!"

Liz Mingo, a regular customer: "I placed my order, which I received on time with a smile by Simon. The quality of the food was superb. It is great to order a little from each shop or business and have it delivered to my home all in one visit. Fabulous. I have since received the same, friendly, helpful service."

Lorraine Bailey, a local customer: "The quality of all the produce I have ordered has been superb, always in stock, delivered on time and excellent value for money.  I would recommend it to anyone."

Food Writer Philippa Hamilton-Jones: "I was so impressed with your produce I thought I could recommend it as gifts.  The chocolate particularly was wonderful and have described it as the best I have ever tasted."  See With Kids Magazine Christmas 2006 edition for full write up on what she ordered.

Heather from Scotland "I looked forward with anticipation to a food parcel arriving all the way from Devon. It arrived promptly in the morning of the delivery day saving me the hassle of hanging around waiting for it. The food was stored in a large cardboard box with padding and ice packs to keep it fresh.  My overall favourite was the combination of scones with clotted cream and apple & blueberry jam. The unusual flavour of jam meant it was quite refreshing and not to heavy with lashings of cream! Considering the length of the journey the scones had made they were impressively fresh. A real treat from down south.  

Being a real chocolate lover, I was happy to see a variety of unusual chocolate delights. The chilli chocolate in particular was amazing, leaving your mouth tingling for a number of minutes. The Cocoa Tree organic hot chocolate was also delicious, consisting of actual flakes of chocolate to mix with milk.

On the savoury side, another highlight was the goat’s cheese with pepper. When combined with the chilli jam and some oatcakes this makes the perfect combination, an extremely tasty snack.  The vegetable pasties were also impressive and were a meal in themselves!"