Don Ruffles Supports Keep It Local Week

As a local business proudly employing people from the Surrey area, Business Products supplier Don Ruffles are urging everyone to get behind Keep It Local Week on 15 -21^st May to raise awareness of the benefits to our social and economic community if we all choose to make a few changes to our spending habits.

Don Ruffles have been supporting local businesses in the Surrey area for over 25 years, selling to over 2,400 local businesses in that time, and were part of the Keep It Local campaign that was started in 2019 by a group of independent office product businesses, initially as a slogan to highlight the benefits of supporting local businesses, but it quickly developed into a national campaign on the back of the publicly declared initiative by the government for one third of its spend on goods and services to be with SMEs, either directly or through the supply chain, by 2022.

Group organisers wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson, reminding him of the government’s commitments to small businesses and asking for support – The letter received over 2,000 views on LinkedIn. After no response, a follow-up letter was sent to Michael Gove, Minister for the Cabinet Office at the time explaining that we understand that the PM is busy, but as it was his predecessors that made the promise to support SMEs, perhaps he can provide an update or take up the offer to facilitate independent businesses like Don Ruffles supplying government organisations on a local scale. Despite this, and almost 300 template letters downloaded from the Keep It Local Website for individuals to send to their local MPs, there was minimal response.

It is commonly believed that the government target has not been reached and the campaign has used the Freedom of Information Act to explore this further. There are around 6 million SMEs in the UK who have battled adversity, dealing with changes through Brexit, a huge decline in sales during lockdown, spiraling inflation and now a cost-of-living crisis; and yet are still disadvantaged when it comes to competing for business in our local areas.

With everyday costs rising steeply, households and businesses are under increasing pressure just to survive; we want to create a bustling community with high employment and occupied high streets that gives everyone a mental and financial lift – only by raising the awareness for the need to change on a national level can we achieve this across the country.

That is why Don Ruffles are offering local business in the Surrey area the opportunity to apply for an extra discount code that can be applied to any one of their seven websites during Keep It Local Week and beyond.

Any customers can use the quote form here.

The campaign is looking to Keep It Local Week to obtain increased support and awareness. We believe there should be a financial incentive for somebody to order from their local distributor rather than defaulting to Amazon, we want households to visit their local stationer, butcher, greengrocer and baker rather than instinctively visiting the out-of-town multinational supermarket and we want businesses to consider the local environment and community when choosing a provider for their needs. We believe local and national administrations could be doing more to encourage those actions.

That is what Keep It Local Week is all about.

Please show your support to local businesses and get behind the campaign. More information on the benefits of supporting local businesses and how to get involved can be found at www.keep-it-local.co.uk.