Critical month for community food store's planning

The opening of Exeter's first community, not-for-profit, local food store is tantalisingly close, but, says Sarah Collier, the secretary and a founding director of the Real Food Store, this month is critical to its progress, with £44,050 of investment still to raise.

The Real Food Store, which aims to offer organic and fair trade food and a fair price, held its first members' meeting last week and with 178 people signed up, who have invested a total of £90,950 to date.

"It is incredibly encouraging the position we are in," says Sarah. "We have now made a key change to the business plan, which people at the meeting were very supportive of because it means we have been able to make significant capital savings, thereby reducing our target amount and making the whole thing more achievable."

To make the savings, the directors have proposed what they are calling "a café lite" instead of a fully-fledged restaurant.

"In due course, we are hoping to have a second kitchen in addition to the bakery ovens, but we are proposing to start with a very simple cafe offering very good quality coffees and teas and cold drinks, with a range of sweet and savoury baked goods that Emma (Parkin, of Emma's Bread) the baker will make and hopefully other pies and food from local producers.

"This means we can make huge savings on equipment, plumbing and electrical installations at start-up and we have also gone through the whole proposal and shaved off money where we can. Obviously, without taking daft risks. Happily we have very some experienced directors who have set up cafes and farms shops and who know what they are doing," Sarah explains.

"All in all, it has had the combined effect of saving £30,000 off the original figure and, of course, has a knock-on effect on cashflow and other overheads."

The Real Food Store now has a target figure of £135,000 to come from community investment. "I am starting to really believe we are going to make it," Sarah whispers.

"What is really encouraging is that we are getting second investments from existing shareholders, but we do need more and we are very aware there are vast swathes of people in Exeter who don't know about the Real Food Store and this is our big challenge for this month."

Current investors, including a few local food producers, come from a wide cross-section of the population, from twenty-somethings to the older generation, and while the minimum investment is £100, Sarah says they are finding groups of people banding together.

Sarah says: "For many people, £100 might be very hard to put together, but a quarter of that might be more of an option for them," she says.

"If we are few thousand pounds off, we can probably rustle up a solution, but if we are way off and we can't see a way of getting the amount, then the most drastic and saddest solution is that we simply refund everyone," Sarah says.

As a community store, Sarah and her fellow founders — who include Dominic Acland, co-founder of Occombe Farm, and David Mezzetti, of Transition Exeter — know that to succeed it will have to have broad appeal and not be a niche store.

"We know we have to cater for convenience. Obviously, we are asking people to gradually change their shopping habits because most shop in bulk at supermarkets and we have to bear in mind the pressures on family budgets.

But we have so many fantastic producers on the outskirts of town that the produce will be really fresh," she says.

"We need to sign the lease on the premises and this can't be kept in limbo for much longer. It is critical that we raise the remaining amount this month for us to go on to the next step and open just before Christmas."

For more information, see realfoodexeter.co.uk or visit the stand at the Green Fair today on Cathedral Green.

Read the online article here.