Community Share Offer Launch

The community share offer launched on 10th June at a packed public meeting held in St Stephen's Church in the centre of Exeter. It was fantastic to see such a good crowd! over 120 people came to find out about the Real Food store and to participate in a lively question and answer session after the presentation. The members of the Real Food team introduced themselves and said a few words about why they are passionate about this new community based business before explaining the vision and the practical how it’s all going to happen bit.

Thank you to Paul Sander-Jackson of Wessex Community Assets for talking about how community investment as a model is gaining real momentum in the UK and is successfully establishing the businesses that communities want with many excellent examples not just in food & growing but in renewable energy for example. Wessex have been advising Real Food on matters relating to the share offer & Paul explained to the audience the different investment options - you can buy shares by instalment, you can also buy collective shares by teaming up with your friends, colleagues or neighbours … once you’ve decided to invest the main thing is to go for it!

Naturally we celebrated the launch of the share offer with some delicious local food and drink! Many thanks to Luscombe Organic Drinks for the refreshing lemonade and devon apple juice and to Ginny of Lyons catering for the delicious finger food featuring Emma's Bread and other locally sourced ingredients including Vulscombe goats cheese, Shillingford Organics beetroot, broadbeans and thyme, beef from Higher Hacknell Farm ... Thanks also to Martin at Shillingford for the lovely fragrant bunches of wildflowers and herbs that decorated the hall reminding us of the rich and productive Devon countryside within view of the High St.

We all mingled and had some very interesting and fruitful conversations on a one to one basis with people about many aspects of the business including what will it look like inside? How local is ‘local’? Local farmers and suppliers were also expressing an interest in a relationship with the Real Food store. People were able to check out plans of the store premises to see what the 4 main elements (store, bakery, café and event space) look like at the moment. Your ideas on any aspect of the business are welcome. Please do tell us what you think via the CONTACT US page.

Please find the Share Offer Document and Share Offer Application Form on this website on the INVEST IN US page.