CASE STUDY
Executive Summary: A March 16, 2021 fire at a Clay Center, KS small business has ramifications for the community, the business owners, their employees and customers.
Challenges: Read their Facebook Page entries, below, to see how a back-up location came into use, as well as the issue of data loss of vital customer information.
Their story, as told on Facebook:
Thank you to all of the first responders. It brought us so much peace to see everyone trying so hard to save our business and second home all throughout the night and majority of today. Thank you to all of the volunteers who helped us today- we couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you to Rays, 15/24 Brewhouse, Java Junkies, Short Stop, and whoever else for all of the food, coffee, and water to help the first responders, volunteers, and our locker family make it through one of our toughest days. Thank you to our employees for being there with their helpful hands and warm hugs when we know this is just as devastating for them as it is for my family. Thank you to everyone who has reached out to us with their thoughts and especially their prayers. We are trying our best to respond to everyone but know that it means the world to have you all reaching out to us. We are so blessed to live in a community that stands behind us and has supported us through the ups and downs… We ask in these next coming weeks to please keep us in your prayers. We ask that you pray for us to find Peace, keep our Strength, and not lose Hope. We are especially thankful that no one was hurt and we keep reminding ourselves that buildings can always be replaced.
We will be regrouping tomorrow and plan to utilize the Junction City Facility for our dressing schedule as we move forward for the time being. With that being said, we will be reaching out to everyone who is currently on our schedule soon to arrange that. We ask that you please respectfully give us time and space as we make our plans and organize this. We will post updates as we begin to sort through everything and formulate our plan moving forward. Thank you all. We truly appreciate your business and support.
Insurance
We are currently working with our insurance company. We ask that if you have any questions, please email us at **redacted**. Please leave us your name and phone number. We have an overwhelming amount of customers currently calling us but will be sure to have our staff contact you to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
A fallback location:
To our valued customers, our plan for our beef slaughter is to shift our schedule to Diamond A Processing located at 2615 N Jackson Street, Junction City, KS. We will be sending our employees to work alongside my cousin Shawn’s employees to processes your beef. At this point, we are planning on dressing the beef the same week or close to the date that you were originally scheduled in Clay Center. If you have found another processor to accommodate you, please let us know so that we can adjust accordingly . We will be contacting you the week prior to your scheduled appointment to assign you a spot. Diamond A Processing is a custom processing not for resale facility- which means we will not be able to process your meat that is going to be resold. However, if you are bringing in beef that has been presold to customers in halves, quarters, etc., that is allowed. We will not be doing any hog processing since all our machinery and equipment was lost. If you cannot find another processor close to you, Diller Locker Company in Diller, Nebraska has immediate openings to schedule your hogs. They are located 60 miles north of Clay Center. They are USDA inspected facility- which means they can process for any kind of resale nationwide. Their phone number is 402-793-5840. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call, text, or email us. Thank you! We appreciate your business.
Lost data:
Good morning. One of the few paperwork items that was not on our computer that we lost in the fire was our list of customers who were waiting to buy a quarter, half, or whole beef directly from us. We are still able to complete your order through Diamond A Processing and should have your instructions scanned in our computer! We ask that if you placed an order to please contact us by either calling us at *redacted*, emailing us at *redacted*, or you can text us at *redacted*. Thank you!”
