Fodder & Forage helping households reduce waste!

Hi! I'm Rosie :)

After spending many, many years working in catering and eventually on flower farms, I finally got the courage to start my own business. In December 2019, I opened Fodder & Forage in New Earswick, York - my very own greengrocer and florist shop. We did all the set up ourselves - my family helped me to build and restore furniture, clean and paint the space, sort out a website and get started.

For me, one of the most important aspects of any business is how they take care of the environment, from my first thoughts of opening I knew I wanted to encourage and enable others to have little or no food waste and to reduce plastic usage. I avoid using plastic packaging where possible and nearly all our fruit and veg is loose, this not only gives people the opportunity to purchase just what they need, but it also helps them to reduce waste. The flowers are all local and seasonal and I package them in compostable wrapping.

The world is currently a strange place due to the ongoing COVID 19 epidemic and people and businesses across the world are suffering. I have been fortunate enough to remain open and have been busy delivering veg boxes to people all over York - honestly, we have had to adapt so quickly to the new issues around us and overcome so many obstacles.  There is still a lot of uncertainty about when things will return to 'normal' and when we will be able to reopen the shop to everyone; however, I am still looking at investing in the shops future. One of the areas we expanded very quickly into providing limited product lines for were dry goods. They are popular but ideally, I would like for these products to be available loose and without plastic.

Therefore, I would like to ask for support to enable us to purchase the equipment to add a zero-waste section to the shop. This would allow me to sell a range of everyday essentials such as pasta, rice, pulses and cereals loose. Unfortunately, these units don't come cheap - they're incredibly expensive - but I feel it would massively benefit the shop and the community that use it. It would also enable them to shop in a more environmentally aware fashion. This was one of my future hopes for my little shop but as we have been launched into providing this sort of stock out of necessity, I would like to continue doing it in a more conscious manner when the shop reopens. We hope that you will be able to support us in expanding our shop for the local community.