With Scotland’s finest product recently rewarded at the Scotland Food & Drinks Awards, and no stopping the trend in provenance, are local retailers stocking more local products than this time last year?
Donna Morgan
Best-one at Brownlies
We’ve got more lines than this time last year. We’re into the high hundreds now with our local products, if not over a thousand. Everything from beer to cheese, to toffee; we’ve even got hanging baskets from Lanark in for the summer so it changes seasonally too. Wherever possible we make a conscious effort to stock locally, which we say is within 30 miles of the store, over anything else. It’s our point of difference. If we stocked the same as the Spar or Co-op we’d be just another convenience store.
David Mitchell
Keystore Broadloan
We’re definitely selling more local and Scottish products over the last year. Suppliers are improving too. Our fruit and veg comes from Scotland whenever possible and we’re using point of sale to indicate to customers what has come from local suppliers. The same goes for butcher meat – the range we buy in from our local butcher sells better than anything else. Whatever the category, it’s certainly something the customers like to see more of.
Scott Graham
Keystore McLeish
I’d say we’ve got around the same number of lines as last year, but then we’ve always carried more local products than an average store. We’re in a very advantageous part of the country for it. Due to our location we’ve got a fantastic range of malts that are made locally, and Mackies crisps are made locally, for example. It gives us a real point of difference to other stores. For example a range we sell that’s made by a local charity has always been popular. Customers do seek out local products.
Jack Marwaha
Premier retailer
We’ve definitely been trying to source more locally in the last 12 months. We’ve got five stores now and we’re working with local suppliers in all of them; with the new stores that means new supplier too. The key is in quality though – there’s no point selling something that isn’t good quality. We like to sample products and if they make they cut they can really fly our the door. Customers demand it, but if it is local and the quality is there they tend to prefer it.
