The Real Food Store invites locals to help celebrate their birthday
Exeter’s dedicated local food shop is celebrating its third birthday and plans to record this occasion by creating a wall of photographs of people with their favourite food or drink item. The Real Food Store, Paris Street, Exeter has over 300 shareholders plus hundreds of regular customers and staff who have already started taking pictures.
Store manager Natalie Ohlson said:
“This isn’t just an ordinary shop selling local food, we’re all about people, both our regular customers and the producers who supply us. The link between those who live or work in town and those who make a living from working on the land or by making food and drink products, might seem invisible but it really is a vital part of our local economy. Taking a photo is just one way to visually portray these connections.”
Since the Real Food Store opened in March 2011 they reckon to have sold over 100,000 loaves of bread made on the premises by Emma’s Bread; 10,000 bags of organic salad leaves grown by Shillingford Organics less than four miles away and served around 50,000 meals in the café using ingredients on sale in the store.
Over 70 per cent of stock items are Devon made or grown and that’s a statistic volunteer director Les Bright is extremely proud of.
"Part of the attraction of the city of Exeter, apart from the obvious man-made benefits, is that you can see countryside from almost every vantage point and I’m proud that we can help make those connections even stronger by bringing the heart of Devon into the town centre."
David Mezzetti chairman of the social enterprise’s board commented:
"We haven’t just brought colour back to the city centre with all this wonderful local produce, we’ve also created jobs directly and in the local economy among our many suppliers. That’s something to be really proud of at a time when pressures on family budgets and employment prospects have been a source of worry for many people."
‘It’s not been easy getting this far and we still have plans to grow the business especially when the future of the Paris Street area is under review and only short term tenancies are on offer."
‘But we like to think we have got this far because of our offer of “local, fresh, seasonal and affordable”. This reflects the food and shopping choices of a growing number of people,"
Anyone visiting the store between Saturday 29th March and Saturday 5th April will be invited to have their photo taken if they wish to be added to the photo wall. And there’s always the store’s popular iconic pink cow to model against! Come and see what’s she’ll be wearing for the birthday celebrations.
The Real Food Store, Bakery and Café is at 11-13 Paris Street, Exeter EX1 2JB and is open Monday to Saturday. Visit: www.realfoodstoreexeter.co.uk for more information.
