If you ever gave us a call because you couldn’t wait to receive your package and wanted to know where it was, or were curious about how much salt you should add to the boiling water for your pasta, chances are you heard back from a very energetic voice with a slight Sardinian accent. That’s Gloria!
Very much beloved by our regulars, who now trust her cooking advices blindly, Gloria is a Gustiamo team member with many talents (yes, we all are!). But the most remarkable, and perhaps unknown to many, is writing. She wrote an article for Cook_Inc. magazine, sharing forceful words about her experience as an essential worker and a reflection on what’s an essential business during Covid-19:
The goal of this post, I think, is to explain how a business that might not look like an essential one, has come quite close to the definition of vital. I’ll also try to report on how in the last weeks our lives have changed, waiving a strident patchwork of stress, routine and alienation, resolutions, gluts of support and back pain.
Gloria goes into the details of what’s been going on in the past weeks at 1715 West Farms Road, in the Bronx.
Our e-commerce was assaulted. We ration out our supplies, but stocks drain while we compulsively monitor the days that keep us separated from the containers crossing the Atlantic.
[…]
Within a few hours we had to revolutionize our long-standing strategies. Bulk sizes usually reserved to wholesale customers are now available on our e-commerce platform; every day, the entire team leaves their desks unattended and works the fulfilment floor, learning in record time how to pick and pack 60 lbs. orders.
We had to reset priorities and reinterpret protocols, but our passion and enthusiasm are still the same.
One month has passed. We started experiencing some aches, but the emails and voice messages left by customers cheer us up. They genuinely express gratitude for the high quality food delivered straight to their homes, or patiently ask recommendations and information about the ingredients.
Read the full article about Gustiamo on Cook_Inc. magazine