Last updated at 10:05, Thursday, 05 February 2009

Locally grown potatoes and beautifully juicy pears are just some of the fresh produce sold at The Allotment in Dumfries, a new traditional greengrocer which aims to improve the health of local people. Andrea Thompson reports on an unusual social enterprise.

The Allotment, Dumfries

Do you remember those days, long before giant, edge-of-town supermarkets ruled the retail world, long before you could shop for your food without leaving your house, simply by using
a computer?
Do you remember those days when getting your weekly groceries in meant a trip to the butchers, the fishmongers, the bakers – where the bread, pies, pastries and cakes were baked, from scratch, on the premises – and to the greengrocers, where the vegetables came from the local farmer and the shopkeeper hand-picked the best fruit from his supplier, proudly arranging them in colourful pyramid-like displays?
Town centre shopping as it used to be may sadly now be as old-fashioned as the wicker baskets people used to carry their groceries in. But a new healthy eating project has brought one element of it back into the heart of Dumfries: the traditional fruit and veg shop.
When you walk into The Allotment in Great King Street, the first thing that strikes you is just how good all the fruit and vegetables look: good enough touch and certainly good enough to eat. Adam wouldn’t have needed Eve to tempt him if they’d
been in The Allotment. He’d have been straight into the scrumptious-looking apples like a shot.
The fruit and vegetables seem so much bigger, healthier and tastier than their shrink-wrapped or suffocating-in-plastic-bags counterparts on the supermarket shelves. And because everything is loose – they call it “naked fruit and veg” at The Allotment – you can pick exactly what you want and how much you want. If that means just one apple and an orange, a single banana or half a portion, of say, a cucumber, a cabbage, or a turnip, then shop manager Greg Clark is happy to oblige. Your purchases go into brown paper bags and yes, Greg has mastered the old-school greengrocer art of flipping the bags to close them with a neat twist top.
The Allotment is the only greengrocers in Dumfries town centre, and is a joint venture between Nithsdale NHS Health Improvement Team and Nithsdale
Council of Voluntary Service (CVS), which runs the shop as a not-for-profit social enterprise. The initiative is supported by NHS Dumfries & Galloway, and Dumfries
& Galloway Council economic and town centre regeneration.
The idea of going retro, recreating a traditional fruit and veg shop of the past, stems from today’s concerns about the health of the nation.
The Allotment, which links in with the “five-a-day campaign” is an innovative part of the Dumfries & Galloway Food and Health Strategy, launched last October, and one a range of initiatives supported by Nithsdale Health Improvement, to encourage healthy eating.
While The Allotment is open to everyone, it has a specific role to improve the health of people on low incomes in Dumfries, including, for example, the elderly, single men and pregnant women, by offering very competitively priced, high-quality fresh fruit and vegetables.
Tina Gibson, public health practitioner for Nithsdale NHS, says the idea for the shop dates back to 2005, when the health improvement team, which she leads, consulted with local residents about access to fruit and vegetables.
“People told us that fruit and vegetables were expensive and not of the quality they would like. From the evaluation of that project, we bid into an inequalities fund from the NHS and received about £60,000 to set up a fruit and vegetable initiative. We also got £10,000 from the council to produce a business plan for the enterprise.”
A pilot project was launched the following year, offering 50 per cent off the cost of fruit and vegetables to people from low income households. It operated from a privately-run convenience store in north west Dumfries, and ran successfully for six months, with 300 households signing up to the registration scheme for the discounted produce. The project, which was subsidised by the council and the NHS, recorded a 47 per cent increase in the sales of fruit and vegetables.
When money later became available through an NHS health promotion inequalities fund, Tina joined forces with Nithsdale CVS director, Karen Lewis, to bid for cash to set up another, long-term fruit and vegetable initiative; either a cooperative or an enterprise.
They went for the idea of a social enterprise shop; a trading subsidiary of the CVS with charitable status, based, Karen says, on a business plan which the CVS had commissioned.
The former Walland jewellers shop, at 8 Great King Street, proved the perfect location for The Allotment, being right in the heart
of Dumfries, within the town centre regeneration area, opposite the bus stop and with disabled parking close by.

The partnership took on the lease of the building last June and carried out extensive renovation work to create a traditional-style greengrocers. It also has a food store, kitchen, toilet facilities, and a small meeting room, which can be hired out, and was officially opened in October.
“We called it The Allotment because it’s not just about growing food, it’s about growing people,” says Karen.
Shop manager Greg is the only paid employee, working full-time for the CVS; the other people who work in the shop are volunteers who are trained in offering The Allotment’s unique personal service to the public, encouraging healthy eating and offering helpful ideas and suggestions.
Customers can also take away free laminated recipe cards, produced by a local dietician and funded by Building Healthy Communities, which have tips on how to store, prepare and cook different fruit
and vegetables.
The Allotment’s range includes potatoes, carrots, onions, turnips, cauliflower, broccoli, leeks, beetroot, parsnips, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, celeriac, courgettes, aubergines, spinach, lettuce, baby corn, sugar snap peas, North Berwick mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, spring onions, chilies, ginger, garlic, grapes, pineapples, apples, onions, lemons, limes, pears, mango and plums, plus a range of fresh herbs.
Fresh produce is delivered daily from The Allotment’s suppliers, Total Produce in Edinburgh, though the shop aims to eventually have at least 20 per cent of its stock from local growers. It wants allotment gardeners to supply produce, and takes a selection of herbs from Barony College.
Greg, who studied sports and health at Stirling University, and honed his interest in healthy eating while living in New Zealand, is delighted with the response to The Allotment.
It has been serving about 300 customers a day and taking about £1,800 a week, beating the sales target set for its first trading year, which was estimated at £1,000 a week.
All the money goes back into the enterprise.
“I’m pleased to be working here,” says Greg. “I’m getting to talk to people about the importance of fruit and vegetables and spreading the word about eating healthily, which is so easy to do.”
Greg loves seeing the community spirit the shop is helping to generate, with friendships forged over the fruit and veg counters. Customers are talking to each other, swapping recipe ideas and even going halves on a cucumber or a turnip. And he’s now a dab hand at serving those customers who can’t make it through the door with their mobility scooters. They simply pull up outside, shout their order in, and Greg sorts it for them out.
Elma Robson, 72, of Locharbriggs, has been a regular Allotment customer since it opened: “I used to buy my fruit and veg at [the supermarket], but now I tend to come here. It’s better quality and the prices are slightly cheaper and it’s definitely handy for me because I just get right off the bus and come in. I always missed the greengrocers in town and now I’m in here on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I think I’m helping by coming here and I’ve recommended it to quite a
few people.”
The Allotment operates a loyalty card scheme, open to anyone, which gives entry into a monthly prize draw to win a £20 credit note for the shop. There is also a discount registration scheme for people on low incomes, or those receiving help from other agencies, such as health visitors and home support workers. It entitles them to a 20 per cent discount off their shopping at The Allotment, in addition to the prize draw entry.
Healthy Start vouchers and vitamins are also available from The Allotment.

First published at 09:26, Thursday, 05 February 2009
Published by http://www.dgblife.co.uk