The Buywell Retail Project is working with fifteen convenience stores in some of London's most deprived areas to encourage people to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables. The stores have been selected because of their location in areas that have poor access to healthy food. The project was run as a pilot from March 2009 until March 2010.
The project is working with small independent shops as well as stores that are part of symbol groups, such as Costcutter and Londis.
The Buywell Retail Project has helped each of the stores to sell more fresh fruit and vegetable by improving quality, range, freshness and location within their store.
Many of the stores involved in the project have never sold fresh fruit and vegetables before. Now they are looking after displays of fresh fruit and vegetables of at least 1 metre in total length. In return, the Buywell Retail Project team worked with each store to offer advice on maximising profits, minimising waste, buying local produce and displaying and promoting the new fresh produce to customers.
Results from the pilot:
- Fruit and vegetable sales increased by an average of 60% across the fifteen stores – the biggest increase was 318% and the smallest 18%
- All the retailers responded positively to the project. Two key elements of success were having a store manager with good community links, and having a store manager who agreed to invest in a new chiller for displaying fruit and vegetables
- The customer evaluation has shown that more people are buying fruit and vegetables from the stores after the changes and customers were more positive about their local store
- Customers also reported eating more fruit and vegetables after the changes; just over half (54%) of those surveyed said that they now eat fruit and vegetables daily after the changes, compared to just under a third (31%) before
Full details on how the project was run can be found in the Buywell Retail Project final report (1.7Mb PDF)
The Buywell Retail Project was run by Rice Retail Marketing, with local partner Tower Hamlets Co-operative Development Agency and was managed by Sustain's London Food Link. It was jointly funded by:
- Tower Hamlets NHS Primary Care Trust, as part of Tower Hamlets' Healthy Borough programme
- The London Development Agency, as part of the Local Food Infrastructure programme
- The Big Lottery, as part of the Well London programme
For more information on the project or to find out which stores are participating please contact Hannah@sustainweb.org
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