This year’s economic downturn devastated many small businesses around the region. Survival often required their owners to quickly adapt to dramatic changes brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
That was the case at the Number 1 Sons pickle factory in D.C. It’s been anything but business as usual there since the pandemic hit in early March.
However, everything seemed orderly during a recent visit to its factory in the Ivy City neighborhood. A crew chopped habanero peppers against the relentless backdrop of an industrial cucumber slicer. The smell of fermented vegetables wasn’t too overwhelming until I peeked inside one of the giant blue fermentation barrels. That’s when the pungent smell of vinegar and spices hit me right in the face.
Kelvin Williams is helping chop habanero peppers. He joined Number 1 Sons in May amid the madness of the pandemic shutdown.Esther Ciammachilli / WAMU
Initially, Caitlin Roberts, co-owner of Number 1 Sons, didn’t think the company would need to make much of a transition in the COVID era. She was utterly convinced that her small company could quickly adapt.
“So I said, ‘Don’t worry. I can just click the button and turn on home delivery,’” Roberts says, laughingly reflecting on her optimism at the time.
The “button” she’s referring to is an option that allows customers to order products on their mobile devices. Number 1 Sons had used it once for holiday gift orders.
“So, if all this bad stuff that you’re talking about happens,” Roberts says, “I’ll just go into the app on the website, toggle Home Delivery on and we’ll be fine.”
They weren’t fine. At least, not at first. In that way, they were like many other small businesses across the region and across the country. The website and app were not equipped to handle the amount of traffic they received. When customers couldn’t order online, they called, texted and sent emails. Demand was overwhelming, Roberts says. Number 1 Sons became an online order and delivery company overnight, instead of one that primarily served up offerings at farmers markets.
“We’d never done this before,” she says. “So it’s not like we had official processes or policies. We were just trying to do the best that we could with the spirit of hospitality and a love of feeding people.”
The company had to purchase four refrigerated delivery vans. A handful of people were brought on staff to pack products at the pickle factory—something Number 1 Sons had never done before. At the peak of the madness in mid-April, Roberts says, they were making about 1,000 deliveries a week.
Number 1 Sons now refers to that transition as “the pivot.” It’s hardly alone in having to revamp its business model.
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