Brothers’ wholesale food delivery service thriving in lockdown

By Melissa Kasule

Brothers in business with some of London’s best restaurants and hotels have kept locals stocked on food whilst supermarkets’ shelves remained empty during lockdown.

Joe and Nick Fowler, from Camberwell, pictured above, set up food wholesale delivery service Knock Knock by Smith & Brock when their four-year wholesale food supplier business Smith & Brock suffered losses during the pandemic.

Born into the food industry, the brothers worked with their father at Covent Garden market as children. At Smith & Brock, the brothers worked with the likes of Michel Roux Jr’s restaurant – La Gavroche, the Langham hotel and Rosewood London.

Plans to set up a food delivery service were in progress before the pandemic, but declining sales at Smith & Brock forced them to put their retail business in action sooner.

Co-owner Joe Fowler said: “Nick and I have been in this industry since we were literally knee-high.

“It’s been a real mixed emotion from everyone, we all worked so hard here in the four years we’d been trading under Smith & Brock, it almost felt like someone was taking away your business from you and couldn’t do much about it, that was heart-wrenching if I’m honest.

“This coronavirus thing just literally turned the taps off. Pretty much from one day to another our daily sales were getting less and less. Until obviously Boris did his speech on not to go into restaurants. Smith & Brock’s customer base fell off the cliff so we had no choice to go into the retail world.”

Knock Knock by Smith & Brock instead delivers food boxes to South London residents’ doors. Boxes include a range of fruits, vegetables, pasta or dairy products.

Joe said: “When all this first happened the supermarkets’ shelves were empty or you had to wait for an Ocado delivery and if you can you’re in a waiting room for two hours trying to book a slot, it was a really good option for people if they wanted fresh fruit and veg delivered to their door.

“I put a couple of posts on Facebook and Instagram to try to get a word out. And the word just kind of spread, and it went really well on day one, it was bonkers. The phones were ringing off the hooks.

“The Knock Knock by Smith & Brock Instagram account is just under 3,000 followers, in like a 100-day period for a business like ours is pretty amazing.”

“What we found is that people are trying to come together and help each other. A guy down in Catford, as far as I know, he’s basically buying for 10 or 12 people in his block of flats, so once a week we go there with 12 to 15 boxes.

“Some of the guys are doing a 12-hour delivery just to get the boxes out and they get back and they are all smiling and happy. One guy came back and got a £20 tip from someone which is lovely to hear.”

“My brother and I want to keep it all going to make sure we are here on the other side when we go back to normal. The plan is to just keep it going till restaurants and hotels open and we can hopefully do both. You can’t compete with a supermarket but we would like to think some people would rather buy from brothers than big multiple businesses. Local people will buy into that rather than a business they can’t see or touch.”

More information on Knock Knock by Smith & Brock can be found here.