Community business celebrates 5th birthday

One of Exeter’s most successful community-owned social enterprises, The Real Food Store in Paris Street, Exeter celebrates its 5th birthday on Thursday 31 March and will be running a special in-store competition for customers during the week.

Over the past five years the store has won a number of awards including the Best Independent Food Retailer at the Food Reader Awards and several from DEBI (Devon Environmental Business Initiative) that recognizes its commitment to environmental principles.

Uniquely set up to provide fresh, locally grown or produced food and drink, the Real Food Store has many loyal customers as David Mezzetti, one of the founders and Directors, remembers how the store came about.

"The Store emerged from a Transition Exeter meeting of local people keen to create a hub to supply fresh local food to people in the City six days a week," explained David.

"The idea was backed by community investment and over 300 local people are now shareholders in this co-operative business. Not only have we achieved our main goal of bringing the best of Devon to the city centre but our business also supports many smaller producers by providing a direct route to market."

Since opening the store has sold over 161,000 loaves made in Emma’s Bread (the artisan bakery located in-store); 80,000 kilos of potatoes; 34,000 boxes of eggs and cartons of milk and 15,000 bags of salad have passed through the shop's doors over the past five years and the popular cafe has served 71,956 cups of coffee!

Manager Lois Galimore says: "We source as much as we can from local suppliers and not only is the quality incredible but it’s surprising just how much variety of produce there is. From local meat to bean sprouts we also have a very popular range of bottled beers and ciders and our customers have proved a good testing ground for new lines."

There will be a week of special celebrations in the Paris Street store and customers spending over £5 from Tuesday 29th March will be entered into a draw with a chance to win one of five goodie bags. These are extremely generously laden with treats from a number of the Store’s suppliers, including Artisan Chai, Bloomberry Juices, GroCycle,  Midfields Granola, Riverford Organics, Shillingford Organics, Teatonics and Tiny Marmalade.