Groceries Doing Well in Lockdown

I emailed our friend Charles to see how he was doing. He runs a tiny specialist grocery store in a small village on the outskirts of Tours. We have known him since he was a wine tourism student intern at Chateau Gaudrelle, but see him a lot less now he has branched out on his own to sell local produce, cheeses and a selection of drinks to discerning customers lucky enough to live close by. We would have been seeing him with foodie clients in March though, except of course the clients had to cancel due to Covid19 restrictions. Here is what Charles had to say about how he's coped during the lockdown:

Charles cutting us some cheese last time we visited.

He appreciated me checking in and said everything is fine. He's lucky in that he has a food business that didn't have to close during lockdown.  He and his wife live in a village in the countryside so that when the weather is nice he can enjoy nature, his house and garden.

He says that Esvres sur Indre, village his shop is in, is rather dynamic and where the local people are attached to their local shops.

L'Art à Table, gourmet grocery store, owned and run by Charles Morand in Esvres sur Indre.

He works mainly with local producers for wine, fruit and vegetables so he has no worries about supplies. The inhabitants of Esvres are having to make an extra meal every day and working less, so they have more time to cook good things. The knock on effect for him is that turnover has not decreased, on the contrary it has increased a little.

He has modified his opening times a bit so that he closes at 5pm rather than at 7.30pm. The extra time in the afternoon he makes deliveries for people who don't want to or can't go out, sick or elderly people.

So, he says, "to sum up, everything is going very well".

************************************************

For details of our private guided tours of chateaux, gardens, wineries, markets and more please visit the Loire Valley Time Travel website. We would be delighted to design a tour for you.

We are also on Instagram, so check us out to see a regularly updated selection of our very best photos.