Rural Community Shops

The Observer Ethical Awards is into its seventh year and celebrates projects, campaigns and ideas that are flying the flag for sustainable change. The Awards consist of a number of categories across sustainability within the UK. The most notable for Community Enterprises are:

Community shops prove resilient despite current downturn

The newly installed shop premises at the village of Kingsbury Episcopi, Somerset is not your average shop.

Local People, Local Food - What can you do for your customers, and what can they do for you?

Plunkett, supported by Making Local Food Work, is delighted to announce a unique, one-day conference in central Birmingham.  The aim of the day is to help you as a village or community shop manager or volunteer increase turnover and profits from local food by understanding your customers and turning them into genuine and useful supporters.

If you are involved in selling local food then this event is for you!

The community shop sector is welcoming two new shops this month, those of Milland in Sussex and Tibberton in Shropshire.
Milland Stores opened on Saturday to a large crowd of supportive community members and a famous face in the form of Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville, a supporter of the project since its inception. The opening also attracted the national media, so look out for a piece in this weekend’s Sunday Telegraph!

A recent news item on an Americal website, highlighed the many differentt ways for giving life back to a shipping container - one of these was turning it into a grocery store!

We've seen many original and unusual shop premises across the UK, from converted toilet blocks, telephone boxes and portable buildings - a shipping container might actually be a replicable and short term solution...

No fewer than six enterprises that have been supported by Plunkett Foundation have either won or been nominated in top national awards designed to highlight the best of the food and farming world.

Stocking local; Growing Sales
A national community shop networking event: Sourcing local food from your region.

This month saw the fourth Community Shops Networking Event take place in Ardingly, Sussex, where over 60 delegates attended to take advantage of the expert advice on offer on how to increase sales by stocking local produce.

Monday 10th October
The Watershed, Bristol
FREE event
 

Rural communities in the South West are being urged to attend a free event in Bristol that will see business experts and rural specialists descend on the city to help struggling communities revive their villages.