Millfield and Millfield Prep pupils create local food delivery service for vulnerable self-isolators

Millfield and Millfield Prep students Freddie and Harry Beasley from Wells have helped their family set up a food delivery service that provides fresh fruit and vegetables to key workers and vulnerable self-isolators.

Twelve-year-old Freddie and 13-year-old Harry have helped to deliver almost 400 ‘Somerset Hampers’, which contain fresh produce including fresh fruit, vegetables, dairy and meat boxes, to Wells, Shepton, Glastonbury, Somerton, Bristol, Bath and Street. The profits of the service will be donated to Somerset Partnership NHS.

The boys came up with the idea after they thought it was strange that fresh fruit and vegetables were out of stock in supermarkets, and wondered how older people would get the food they needed.

As well as providing a useful service, the boys have learned what it takes to run a small business: Harry has worked on marketing by taking photographs, adding descriptions to the website, monitoring orders and has created social media adverts which have reached 78,000 people. The Millfield Year 9 pupil also planned and launched a giveaway on Facebook to donate a hamper to an NHS worker or to a vulnerable person. Millfield Prep Year 7 pupil Freddie has learned about customer interaction, logistics and co-ordination, and has particularly enjoyed manning the live chat on the website where he has had to answer a variety of questions.

The next phase of ‘Somerset Hampers’ is to allow for other independent businesses to sell through their platform, either locally or nationally.

Harry and Freddie said, “We wanted to help the NHS as nurses and doctors are having a tough time at the moment and we wanted to help people who were finding it hard to get food. It makes us feel good that we are able to get food to people who really need it, and that we are helping local businesses and the NHS too.”

For more information about Somerset Hampers, visit http://www.somersethampers.com