Food shopping

Unicorn Grocery
A workers co-operative, owned and run by its workforce. The award winning store offers decent food at affordable prices with a strong focus on organic, fairtrade and local.

Produce is competitively priced without sacrificing ethics due to factors such as a direct buying business model, close working relationships with local growers and minimal spend on overheads like marketing. The ownership structure also enables Unicorn to operate without an overarching objective to maximise profit.

Love Local Food
A mobile shop selling a range of seasonal, mostly organic and local, food and drink. Products that are not available locally are fair trade and ethically sourced.

A not-for-profit business model based on partnerships between local growers, and a low cost, mobile, retail outlet in the form of their van ensures prices can be competitive and they can take their service directly to the communities in Exeter which they serve.

Fordhall Farm
England's first community-owned farm. The Fordhall Community Land Initiative is an Industrial and Provident Society with charitable status. It is currently owned by over 8000 shareholders with the farm leased out to tenant farmers. The shares cannot be traded on the open market so securing the future of the farm.

The farm has also been organic for over 65 years and the society’s rules for how the farm should be run include ensuring that it is managed sustainably for community benefit.

Futurefarms
A group of residents from Martin in Hampshire formed a co-operative in 2006 to try and produce as much of their daily diet as possible from fields within their parish boundary, using the minimum of chemical inputs.

They are a non-profitmaking enterprise – the food produced is sold to local people with all proceeds being used to cover costs. The farm work is currently done by co-operative members, with some hired labour, but ultimately they plan to employ a full-time farmer.

Muesli Mountain Market
A market based in a Brighton pub garden selling local, organic food and other ethically sourced household products. It is open 6 days a week, for local people to buy and sell from local people.

The convenient residential location, utilising an existing community hub in the form of a pub, makes this venue a truly community focused affair. Also the low cost retail space helps keep prices reasonable.

Church Farm, Ardeley
A mixed farm designed to produce a maximum variety of food for local customers, using 50% less fossil fuels. The business model also includes a farm shop, café, mechanic service, training courses, workshops, events and campsite, so redefining the farm as a multi-faceted rural hub.

They are now looking to join with other enterprises with similar values, to replicate the model elsewhere and build an umbrella brand that encompasses different organisations across the country.

The People's Supermarket
A member-run and member-owned social enterprise. Members get a say in how the supermarket is run and get cheaper prices in return for volunteering in the shop.

The aim is to create a commercially sustainable, social enterprise that achieves its growth and profitability targets whilst responding to the needs of the local community and providing healthy, local food at reasonable prices.