How many plastic bags have you bought from supermarkets, only to throw them away or never use them again? How do you make conscious decisions as a customer to become greener when companies create so much waste with their packaging? That’s where Bovey Larder comes in.
Owners Corin and Rebecca Burton run this zero-waste shop together, encouraging customers to bring their own containers and bags in an effort to reduce the waste that otherwise accompanies from everyday groceries. Corin talks about his move to Bovey Tracey, how he’s been able to grow a following within their community, and what goes into filling a zero-waste shop with stock from local suppliers.
How did you get the idea to open Bovey Larder?
I had a long career in London, then we had a personal, family matter, and decided to take a more fundamental look at what we were doing. Rather than continue as is, Rebecca and I looked for something we could do together in a place we love.
We really like Bovey Tracey; it’s real. Previously, we’ve moved away from tourist destinations and chocolate box sorts of places, so for our move to Devon we’ve consciously chosen somewhere there’s a good community, but also real life and challenges, and Bovey’s got that.
We looked at a few business options, had various conversations, but nothing really floated our boat. It just so happened that we were going through a journey of sustainability at home, were switching to vegetarianism and taking plastic out of our home life, so eventually we thought about combining the two.
We ended up buying this building, which is where the Cheese Shed used to be. We put together a detailed five-year business plan, Rebecca went on a few specialist training courses, and then started small, growing organically during COVID. While serving people from the front of the shop was a challenge, we built good relationships with customers and they got used to our expertise around the products we were providing, and the rest is history.
What is the business like for Bovey Larder in Bovey Tracey?
What is the business like for Bovey Larder in Bovey Tracey?Even though neither of us had any retail experience, we’re thorough and work quite well as a partnership. We have a lot of structure and detail in the background, so having those systems in place allows us to really focus on customer service. A lot of our time is spent building up good relationships with the town, our customers, and the suppliers as well.
Many of our goods, chocolate, coffee, honey, and biscuits, come from small, local suppliers. We’re also a licensed business and sell beer and ciders. Adding drink sales has been good and successful as stock is from interesting different local brewers and aren’t run-of-the-mill products you’d find elsewhere.
We don’t stand still either and we try to do new things, we’ll run Sample Saturdays where we showcase one supplier and just recently our Saturday mornings have become “Coffee & Tunes” mornings, when we invite people to a sample coffee from our local supplier and also invite them to select the next vinyl LP to put on the turn table. You can never really predict what is going to work best, but Coffee & Tunes has been, shall we say, a hit!
How do you foster that community spirit from customers and suppliers?
How do you foster that community spirit from customers and suppliers?We’ve now become something of a community hub!
We’ve grown a really lovely, loyal group of customers, many of whom visit several times a week. We’re very well supported locally and we’ve also supplied products in bulk to local businesses – we supply multiple small cleaning companies, have also provided products in bulk to both Bovey Paradiso and The Bell Inn, plus each week, Rodney’s Café collect their dried ingredients for baking from us.
Ultimately, community is what supports people. Before we opened, Rebecca spent time working in a local café, getting to know some of the town. Soon after we opened, people lobbied me to join the town council, so I’m now a town councillor and I’ve also helped to resurrect the Business Association in town. So we give something back to, but also build loyalty with the community.
We’re both personable and friendly and really want to help. We have some regulars who, when passing will always pop in for a chat, whether they need to buy anything or not. We’re also a friendly place for older people who might not necessarily have family or work colleagues close by – this can be a safe place for them too. If we can spread a little happiness; while we’re doing what we enjoy, that makes us happy.
Every Friday, I also post a very corny joke on our socials – I have a small but now robust cohort of followers, and people will often come in and groan about the quality of the joke at me. It’s something I started doing when I was managing teams previously. We can go through quite a drudgy week sometimes, but if you can put a little smile on somebody’s face, then that’s a good thing.
What have been the difficulties of managing the Bovey Larder?
What have been the difficulties of managing the Bovey Larder?Quantifying the impact of specific challenges is next to impossible. We’re constantly working hard, are always trying to do something new and generate more customers, more footfall, and more sales.
We’ve had challenges along the way with COVID, then the cost of living crisis. On a society level, we see separation of wealth, and a stretch in the gap between the haves and have nots which is concerning and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get better soon.
The biggest challenge for us though is separating your work and home life. Rebecca and I work together and live together, so we have to be quite careful we’re not damaging our relationship by working together.
What exciting plans have you got for the Bovey Larder in the future?
What exciting plans have you got for the Bovey Larder in the future?The 2024 Bovey Festival was a big undertaking for us. We’re running it again in September this year. To save the festival was a good thing to do for the town and our community. We have to learn how that worked from scratch, and get vendors and sponsors booked up for a busy day in town. Hopefully this year, it’ll be a smoother, more repeatable process.
In terms of new ideas for the business, it will probably be more organic until the festival’s out of the way, unless something hits us from left field. We’ve looked before at expanding Bovey Larder and considered whether the right thing to do was to open another larder in perhaps Ashburton or Chudleigh, but it’s not for now.
Have you got any advice for people wanting to open their own zero waste shop?
Do it professionally and with detail. You can go into opening a zero-waste shop with great, laudable plans, and a lot of energy to help people live more environmentally friendly lives but having the business acumen is important. Just be sure that the business model is right and understand the detail of how it’s going to operate.
It’s not easy to get new customers through the door, so put in as much effort as you possibly can to get your tentacles in the community and make the shop as attractive as possible for people to come in. As well as the look and feel of the shop, that can be about how you speak to people, whether the door’s open, or whether you’re playing music and sampling coffee on a Saturday morning.