Locavore founded by Reuben Chester is the first social enterprise supermarket in Scotland. Their veg box is now popular and the company is thriving in the competitive food market. A smart effort to provide people with fresh and organic food at their doorstep has engaged appreciation.
Reuben Chester received the “Best Of Organic Market (BOOM) 2019” award. He states “Sustainability means a perfect meeting point of the environment of communities and social environment as well, so it’s a sort of sweet spot where we can get a comfortable lifestyle and a good world without messing up the world in the process.” Locavore is determined to do sustainable economic growth.
Healthy food is of course a top priority for humans. What people are consuming at restaurants, houses, and cafés can be produced thousands of miles away. Processing and packaging of food products are inevitable for such a distant journey. Packaging of food products contains plastic and polymer materials. The environment is loaded with traces of plastic garbage. Research states that processed food products are questionable and can cause long time effects on the human body. Most countries in the world cannot run their food supply by themselves. Many countries are almost fully dependent on imports to feed their people. Of course, the food needs to travel from Africa to the United States, Asia to Europe, and so on.
Locavore has built a sustainable local food system. This is an outstanding approach for the local economy and the environment. The enterprise was established with an innovative idea in 2011. The company developed a shop, market garden, and veg box scheme. Over time Locavore becomes bigger and Reuben Chester, the founder, has a plan to go even further. Now, the enterprise secured £850,000 in funding to support its growth plans. The venture emphasized supplying local, organic, and zero waste food that serves approximately 1500 clients and sells 7000 veg boxes per month around central Scotland. This business scenario of Locavore might bring a turnover of £10 million. A nice venture of a just a decade-old that employs 180 people already. The Covid-19 pandemic also led to making their veg boxes becoming more popular for quality foods. A typical veg box and fruit bag offered by Locavore can be small, standard, large, and, extra-large. The company believes in fairness, a healthy environment, using money to do good, honesty, and most importantly great food.
Entrepreneurs are key to the local, national and global economies. The world is kind of smaller than ever and one can make a profit across the planet with an innovative idea. People are now much more concerned about the environment than ever before. Though pollution is not stopped, many people are trying to make changes when they have a chance to and know how to contribute. Thus sustainable ventures are being more successful. Locavore impresses with its idea, service, and commitment. They have a certain goal to become a role model for fair and sustainable business. Reuben Chester, the Managing Director of Locavore graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a bachelor’s degree in Sustainable Environmental Management in 2009. Now he dreams to become one of the biggest retailers, wholesalers, with veg box schemes in Scotland. As Social Investment Scotland (SIS) invests in the company, it will allow the founder to build the required infrastructure, of course, they plan to do this in a sustainable way.
