The last year has been a real period of transition for Balham family-run catering business Emily Preece & Co, which develops and cooks delicious dishes from home, delivering them to your door.

Emily's lived in the area all her life and started the business with her husband back in 1991 – and the last 12 months have brought challenges like never before. However, Emily tells us that there have been ups as well as downs:

“The biggest challenge has been coping with the scale of deliveries and inconsistent demand; it’s impossible to be fully prepared and this also makes income unpredictable. However, it has been refreshing not having to travel and being able to focus on the local community a bit more.

"Although our margins aren’t quite what they were, catering has done quite well despite the circumstances and the industry is sure to recover when people are able to entertain again. We’ve loved seeing the pickup of new clients through Instagram especially and hope to expand our customer base further.”

The business strives to be continually creative too – a fantastic example of this being their current cultural ‘Lockdown Getaway Menu’ series, which aims to make up for all your overseas meals missed due to the travel restrictions – a great way to break the lockdown meal monotony with a new experience each week!

Thanks to Emily for sharing how her business is faring at this time. To see the weekly menu and to order, visit emilypreeceandco.co.uk