A Little Word About Recent Stock Problems

Over the last few weeks, many of our customers will have noticed that certain teas — especially our very popular Scottish Tablet tea — have repeatedly gone out of stock far quicker than usual.

We wanted to take a moment to explain what has been happening behind the scenes.

As a very small family-run business based in the Outer Hebrides, we work a little differently from large mainland retailers. Our shop is housed in an older, smaller building, which means we simply do not have the luxury of enormous storage rooms or warehouse-sized stock holdings.

Instead, we rely on smaller but regular deliveries to keep everything moving steadily.

Normally, this works very well.

Recently, however, several unrelated problems arrived all at once, creating what can only be described as a perfect storm.

One of our suppliers introduced a brand-new computer system, which unfortunately caused delays and confusion in processing orders. Around the same time, parcels managed to disappear somewhere within the UK delivery network, resulting in delayed and missing shipments. Add ferry disruptions and weather-related transport issues into the mix, and suddenly, even routine deliveries became unpredictable.

None of these issues were caused by us, but we fully understand how disappointing and frustrating it can be when favourite teas are unavailable.

Our Scottish Tablet tea became the clearest example of just how unusual things became.

When one delayed shipment finally arrived, we added 5 kg of stock to the website in the evening and hoped we had finally caught up. By the next morning, the entire delivery had sold out overnight.

Some long-standing regular customers had already contacted us beforehand to reserve portions, which then meant we had to reduce a number of online orders afterwards — something we genuinely dislike having to do.

Thankfully, the next order had already been placed before the first one even arrived, and that delivery reached us much faster. Even so, stock disappeared again almost immediately, with some individual orders including 500 g or more at a time.

While we completely understand wanting to stock up on a favourite tea, especially after shortages, very large purchases can quickly unbalance stock levels in a tiny business like ours and leave other customers disappointed both online and in-store.

We would therefore kindly ask customers planning to order larger quantities — especially more than 500 g of one particular tea — to get in touch with us beforehand if possible. It allows us to better plan incoming deliveries, manage stock flow more smoothly, and hopefully avoid further disappointment.

Running a micro business in the Hebrides occasionally comes with challenges that larger companies never have to think about, but we are doing our absolute best to keep your favourite teas flowing despite the occasional chaos.

We are deeply grateful for your patience, understanding, and continued support. Every order, every kind message, and every returning customer truly means the world to us.