Exclusive
By Ian McConnell
Business Editor
THE owner of a landmark Glasgow restaurant has highlighted the “new assault course” created for his bistro by the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit, flagging import and general supply-chain challenges as well as recruitment difficulties.
Marco Giannasi, who owns the Battlefield Rest with wife Yellena, flagged new challenges in importing food, such as pasta, jam, and honey, from Italy. He also highlighted, in a general context, “patchy supply” of some products, and delays to deliveries arising from driver shortages, in an interview with The Herald.
Mr Giannasi said: “You need to add all the things together – what has happened in the past two years. There has been a lot of changes in the world, especially in Europe – Brexit.”
Highlighting additional paperwork required for imports from the European Union because of Brexit, he added: “There is a new process of things for importing goods. We still buy directly from a local producer where I come from [north of Tuscany].”
Noting such orders normally arrived within a week to 10 days, Mr Giannasi said: “This time it took nearly seven weeks because it is a whole new process of applying. That took a long time to process. It was costly as well to put that in place.”
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Welcome to shortages Britain: so what now Boris Johnson?
Commenting on more general supply issues affecting the restaurant sector, and many others, in the UK, Mr Giannasi said: “There is patchy supply of some products at the moment. There is a wee bit of a lack of some, it seems, in stock. The suppliers don’t seem to have stock or the deliveries get moved to different days because obviously there is an issue with driver shortage so obviously deliveries get delayed on arrival in general. It is kind of a little bit uncomfortable at the moment to source things.”
The restaurant owner also flagged difficulties in finding tradesmen.
READ MORE: Battlefield Rest owner Marco Giannasi pursues Glasgow tram dream
He tweeted last week: “How extraordinary has been such a strong demand on all industries, sectors either on finding employees or tradesmen or simply spare parts or products. The ‘Pandemic & Brexit’ has created a New Assault Course for us to challenge.”
Mr Giannasi noted the impact of Covid-related self-isolation on driver shortages and, in the context of Brexit, added: “How many drivers were from other countries? That is a statistic we need to find out because that would be interesting to see. How many are here? How many have gone back since the pandemic?”
Revealing a decision to stop opening on Sundays, Mr Giannasi tweeted this week: “We have taken the difficult decision to return to being closed on a Sunday from the 6th Sept. This is to help with the general wellbeing of our staff. Also due to logistical difficulties in getting fresh produce.”
He noted Sundays had been busy but underlined current challenges.
The Battlefield Rest has raised employee numbers from 18 to 20, including Mr Giannasi and his wife, and has tried to hire further staff.
Mr Giannasi said: “I decided it is better to have the same people, going back to six days a week. At least it kind of relieves the pressure on all of them. Just for the sake of a busy day, are you going to jeopardise the rest of the team and their welfare? ... You don’t want to overcrowd yourself and put a lot of pressure into their bodies and minds. We tried to source staff for over two months.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel