A Falmouth business which decided to close its doors for seven weeks despite the government granting them 'essential business' status has spoken to Nub News.

The Natural Store, based on Market Street, closed its doors to customers in March to deter people coming to the town during the pandemic.

They have recently reopened the store, allowing customers in under strict social-distancing rules.

Rob Kneebone, Store Manager of Natural Store Falmouth, told Nub News:

"When the Lockdown was announced, we - as a so-called Essential Business - didn't have to close our doors to the public but we decided to do so to help discourage people from coming into town.

"Which as a retail business reliant on such traffic is completely at odds to and counterintuitive to our business sense, but we did so to help stem the spread of the virus through the community and to protect our staff and customers from unnecessary exposure to the virus."

The store stayed closed for seven weeks, and despite starting a very successful home delivery service, they were operating at a loss.

"Although the volume of store collections and home deliveries we did were vast we were running at a loss so we decided we needed to reopen the shop to the public in the second week of May," Rob said.

"What we quickly learned was how labour intensive and unprofitable such a service on its own is and not viable for us long-term."

The Natural Store has seen a huge response to reopening their shop fully and Rob hopes this can be repeated across other stores in Falmouth.

He said: "The response we got from our customers was purely positive and it was genuinely a lovely feeling to be open again and to see some familiar faces - even if they were behind the disguise of a Covid mask.

"Although far from 'normal', it was nice to experience a slice of the old normal in being open again and seeing customers face-to-face and not just through the realms of faceless technology.

"It made us realise just how fundamental town centres are for glueing together communities and for keeping human-to-human relationships intact and functional."

"I just hope small businesses like ours so reliant on footfall will bounce back and town centres will again be a buzz of activity.

"Covid could be seen as the final nail in the coffin for town centres that have suffered at the hands of changing consumer habits, out of town shopping complexes and supermarkets."

Despite the tough times the high street is facing, Rob is hopeful that Falmouth's respect for the face-to-face shopping experience will see things back to how they were.

"I like to think that despite the perceived ease and convenience of shopping online compared with shopping in physical shops, the majority of people do enjoy and benefit from the experience of shopping in real-time and this traditional way of shopping is far from dead.

"I think once the Covid crisis eases and people feel safe to go out and about again town centres will slowly start to recover."

The Natural Store was established first in Helston in 1993 and expanded to Falmouth in 1997.

The Falmouth store became so popular that it outgrew the premises on Falmouth's Old High Street, moved into its new and more spacious premises on Market Stand in 2017.

The Natural Store is an 'Aladdin's Cave' of whole foods and organic foods, including a huge selection of store cupboard essentials: vegan and vegetarian goods, artisan bread, packaging-free certified organic fruit and vegetables, organic fish, poultry and meat, ethical products, ecological household products, ecological toiletries and much much more.

Despite the hopeful outlook to the future, Rob understands that it will be no easy journey and change is going to be needed.

He continued: "That said, it is no simple path back to what we had and in lots of ways we and other businesses like us will need to adapt and perhaps diversify in order to be viable and to sustain business in the longer term.

"What Covid and the response to it has perhaps taught us more than anything is that nothing is static or to be assumed; we must be ready to adapt and respond to future challenges and so must armour ourselves with the tools and skills to do so."

The Natural Store is now open 5 days a week:

• Monday: 10am - 5pm

• Wednesday: 10am - 5pm

• Friday: 1pm - 5pm

• Sunday: 10am - 4pm