We wanted to give an update to all of our customers on the current situation. As many of you are aware our industry, as well as other sectors, are experiencing disruptions and issues that are affecting the running of our business including production & stock levels. One of the main issues seems to be importing raw materials, with no containers available we are seeing timescales escalate with a most recent product taking 6 months to be delivered. Another issue is the completion of our new factory, COVID has had a huge impact on this and with the current energy crisis we have struggled to get an electricity supplier, which means we are heavily behind in terms of the scheduled opening of our new production facility. These issues are causing the following problems:Porcelain clays - we are currently struggling to obtain one of the materials that is used in most of our porcelain recipes and are being given a lead time of June, which we are not confident will happen. We are trying to source alternatives but this hasnt been simple and we will not do anything which effects the high standard of these products. This means that we are currently unable to produce most of our porcelain bodies and at this time are unable to give customers an exact date on when production will commence. Clay Production/Stock Levels - Our new production facility should have been completed last year, due to the issues mentioned above we are still unable to complete on our building and have no electricity in place. This means that we have been unable to increase our production capacity as planned, with the increase in orders and the lack of production capacity we are working hard to meet the current demand. In the past we prided ourselves on our stock levels and can only apologise that this is no longer the case and customers are having to wait for their orders to be fulfilled.  Website Issues - we have had issues with our website being corrupted which means we have had to take down the shop element. We are in the process of launching our new website and shop facility but in the meantime ask if all customers could phone or email in regards to placing your order. This is just temporary and we can only apologise for any inconvenience caused. Phone Issues - we have our IT/phone company trying to resolve the issues with the phone lines and still have no solution at this time, if you experience this problem please email us directly on sales@valentineclays.co.uk and we can call you back. Again we apologise for this inconvenience. Back orders - we are taking back orders (placed & paid for at the time - as we need to understand quantity levels) and will ensure these are fufilled on a first come first served basis as soon as we have the stock. We do ask if customers could please try to help us by not over ordering which only increases the stock level issues & adds to our production pressures.     We thank you for your patience during what is proving to be a very difficult time for Valentine Clays and hope that you can bear with us whilst we try to resolve the above issues.