South Wairarapa residents who received this parcel would ‘brie’ delighted. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
ALEYNA MARTINEZ
[email protected]
To the Coast with the Post delivery man Gordon Wyeth was given a special task this week by C’est Cheese owner Paul Broughton in Featherston.
Broughton made the hard decision to close up shop while the country was still at alert level two of the covid-19 pandemic.
“I was quite concerned, and I thought we needed to do it quicker, so we made that call on Sunday night before the official lockdown,” he said.
Taking precautions to protect his retail staff who deal with a lot of international travellers, Broughton still had a lot of brie left over that he didn’t think needed to go to waste – “we wrapped about 140 pieces of cheese and sent it out”.
Wyeth said the lucky letterboxes were chosen simply based on how regularly they were cleared.
“We wanted the cheese to be fresh when they got them,” he said.
One lucky recipient Luke Tipoki went on to twitter to say how happy he was to receive the treat in the mail.
“C’est Cheese in Featherston must’ve had stock to get rid of, so they gave it to our rural delivery mailman and he’s put a bit in everyone’s mailbox,” he tweeted. “We didn’t have any nice cheese in our fridge, so this is a real treat.”
Adjusting to the first week of the lockdown, Broughton said, “I’m working on an online delivery service as we speak, so hopefully we won’t be too far away from contactless delivery – people can go online and order products”.
For C’est Cheese, encouraging people to buy local has “always been our motto anyway”, Broughton said.
“Support local businesses so they can continue to employ staff when this thing is all over – things will be different but hopefully we can all survive it.
“We’re only into day six of it and it depends how long it goes on for, but people are really resilient around here and the social networks really good – albeit now at a distance but everyone’s looking after each other as they always do around here.”
