Companies across Cumbria have given their employees hampers to say thanks for their hard work.
The gifts also supported county businesses, as firms including British Gypsum at Kirkby Thore, David Britton Estates, Penrith and Allan Stobart Fuels, Raughton Head, worked with Chestnut House, at Pooley Bridge, to put the hampers together.
In the week before Christmas, staff at Chestnut House, owned by Andrew and Emma Kaye, collated and packaged over 300 Christmas hampers.
Jane Warner, senior administrator at British Gypsum, said: “We wanted to provide all 190 employees with a thank you gift as we can’t get together to celebrate this year.
“We wanted to support a small local business and so we chose Chestnut House.
“Andrew came up with the great idea of filling them with local produce and so we managed to support nine local businesses and not just one!
“We’d just like to say thank you to everyone involved for pulling it off at such short notice it was great working with them – Andrew and his team at Chestnut House have been fantastic!”
Cumbrian estate agent David Britton ordered hampers from Chestnut House for the second successive year – and this time, doubled up the size of the hampers for his staff
David said: “Throughout the lockdowns I’ve shopped local and was really impressed with how the Chestnut House team supported the community. Our staff loved the products included in the hampers last year and I know they will do the same again.”
Andrew Kaye said: “British Gypsum wanted something quickly and we were able to jump right on it because we’d anticipated demand for purely Cumbrian hampers in the summer when shop visitors were enquiring in the summer.
“And because we work with so many local producers, we’ve been able to come up with a great range of ‘pick and mix’ items that include things you won’t easily source else – Cumbrian Hampers – all packed with 100 per cent Cumbrian flavours.
“It is also good to know that choosing one of our hampers means several other local artisan food and drink producers benefit too.
“We’d like to say a big thank you to our suppliers who pulled out all the stops to get the goods to us and to our fab team of staff who pulled the hampers together and delivered on time.”