Belgian businesses look for new opportunities amid pandemic

Belgian companies are having to find new opportunities during the pandemic in order to stay afloat.

Dioxyde de Gambettes is a bicycle delivery cooperative based in Brussels. Its objective is to substitute bicycle trips for professional deliveries usually made by car.

While the pandemic hit its business, it managed to adapt, searching for new clients and even finding ways to work with existing ones differently.

"It was a tough blow when the pandemic hit," said operations manager François Bellenger. "But we were also able to change how we deliver to some customers who have themselves transformed their businesses at the same time."

One of these clients is the Stoemelings brewery in Brussels.

When bars and restaurants closed amid the coronavirus restrictions, they decided to sell their beer directly to individuals.

"The first wave we managed to make up for even more than what we lost originally," the brewery's Samuel Languy told Euronews. "But I think there was really an impact on the fact that people were staying at home. 

"Now we are back in a kind of semi-containment and online sales have resumed, but that no longer compensates for losses related to the hospitality industry and the event sector. 

"In the long-term, it's not good enough."