Trying times requires us all to dig deep to find some way to not only persevere but help others as well.
We have chosen to lead with empathy and do whatever we can to help.
At Wolkberg, many of our customers are in the hospitality industry, including restaurants, and they have been severely impacted by the lock down. Their future is extremely unclear. This, in turn, puts us SME’s and contractors that rely on them at serious risk as well.
This forced us to think outside the box to find a solution. We are approaching the challenge by finding a way to help our clients settle their debts. This will allow them to focus on other aspects of their business, and put capital towards paying staff and keeping the entire supply chain active.
R.O.A.R will become a long term initiative, we hope to assist other businesses in need after our clients are covered. It's a small gesture, but every journey starts with a single step.
We asked ourselves - What Can Wolkberg Do to help?
As Industrial Designers and manufacturers our strength lies in innovation and we needed to find a way to contribute using our skills.
We have proudly developed a 100% Locally Sourced tile range that is made from 81% Recycled Material.
We currently do use recycled materials but needed to push the envelope further to be at the forefront of the sustainability efforts in South Africa. Since our inception, we have collected our waste from casting, rejects and broken tiles in order to crush and reuse this as a raw material.
We aim to strengthen all local suppliers, and build our internal economy, by making this shift towards 100% locally sourced materials.
We know a lot of you are sitting at home feeling somewhat helpless and questioning how you can give back? This initiative is for you! We are offering customers, especially homeowners, the chance to contribute towards Reviving Our Amazing Restaurants.
We proudly introduce to you, the Evolve Range. The Evolve Range will be offered, to you the customer at 10% off and Wolkberg will, in turn, pay it forward by contributing 10% of all Evolve sales towards a business in debt on our books.
We see this as our contribution to keeping our friends in the restaurant industry afloat, so that they can focus on rebuilding once lock down is lifted. Wolkberg will continue with this initiative to support other businesses in need once our clients are covered.
The Evolve Range is symbolic.
It is all about renewal and transformation in that it is 81% recycled, and mostly from our own waste! The affiliation to ROAR is symbolic as we renew and revive our restaurant industry.
The Evolve Range will be available in select shapes, namely Bau, Cross, Lene, Lim, Oblique, Scallop, Thia and Tri. You can download a quick cheat sheet of this information here - and it is available on the Downloads page as well.
How does your purchase help the restaurant industry?
In order to understand this, it is important to know what goes on behind the scenes in the restaurant industry. For this, we have done our research and put together a few statistics to broadly highlight the ripple effect caused by the lock down.
Diffusion of Income:
It starts with the entrepreneur / restaurant owner and goes all the way down to the employees at factories and contractors. Stats SA shows that on average in SA an income supports a further 3.5 people.
Industries that rely on operational restaurants: The affected are farmers of meat & poultry, dairy, fruit & veg, bakeries, alcohol and beverage companies (some small scale artisanal), nonalcoholic beverages, gas, and other.
Operating restaurant income: The majority of restaurant income is through individuals and households.
Many of us hold dear memories from a shared meal with family, a date with a new partner, a night out with your girlfriends, having a beer with a friend you haven't seen in ages, the list is endless.
As humans, we are social beings and enjoy going out and having a meal together. We could dig deeper into the psychology of why this is the case but we won’t for now. In conclusion, we need restaurants because we are social at heart, and the chain as indicated above needs restaurants for economic stability.
Together we can make it through this.
Reference list Research and assumptions are Wolkbergs’ through various portals like STATS SA, www.Alliedmarketresearch.com, www.soutafricanmi.com
