The twists and turns of the recession

I needed to get some food shopping done today and headed over to the nearest deli, in this part of the country that is 7 miles away.

I hadn't been there for a while, so pulled up outside the shop expecting all to be as normal., except I noticed a property rental board and a notice in the window. The business had closed as of 31st July.

My next point of call was the local farm butcher, about 14 miles away ('local' in East Anglia is a relative term), I am still not used to the 24 hours easy access of London that I have recently left behind.

The butcher, Brian was looking well and happy with life and was delighted to introduce me to a new butcher they had recently recruited to the farm because of expansion.

Brian said they were pretty quiet today and had been much busier yesterday, but between the three of us in the queue, over £200 changed hands, in all of about 20 minutes.

The recession is running a strange tornado path through the country, some people and businesses continue to thrive and grow, others are being cast to the wind.

In my experience today, two pretty similar operations, one a deli with a meat counter the other a butchers with a deli counter, no more than 20 miles apart have in the past month seen completely divergent paths. One expanding, the other closing.

The failed business in the centre of a Stilton, a small-town or large village, depending if you are half full or half empty glass person, the other expanding its business, sits in splendid isolation a couple of miles from the nearest small village.

Was it location, the business model or pure luck that these two very similar operations had seen such divergent fortune. Would it have made any difference had their premises been reversed?