Would you like to start a community shop? These are small shops that are usually owned and run by the community. Often there is a paid manager, but most other staff are volunteers, who just work a few hours each week. The good thing about community shops is that if you want to order something in, you can – because you part-own the shop!
Community shops are thriving. Many have bought their local shop, when the owner retired, dreading it may become a Spar or Tesco Express. In fact, community shops tend to do very well, because overheads are low, and they stick around, when things get tough.
You can find help to set up (or save) a community shop at Plunkett Foundation. As well as giving help and advice, its membership offers discounts on items like insurance.
If you’re not ready to go the whole route, you could at least use local suppliers for your food shop. Two good ideas are Click it Local (like a Deliveroo takeaway, but this one delivers food by foot or bicycle from local suppliers), or Foodstufff delivers food from indie restaurants.
The other option is a co-op. This can be a small shop or supermarket. Many of our big wholesalers to health shops (Suma, Infinity Foods) are co-ops as is Manchester’s Unicorn Grocery. Again these are owned by members (nothing to do with co-op supermarket). Suma has just launched its own range of Altern/native Soaps (all plant-based, free from palm oil and wrapped in paper).
Avoid essential oils in pregnancy/nursing and for now, avoid eucalyptus oil, due to sustainability issues with koala harvesting.
