Fruit & veg deserts & the death knell of the local greengrocer

Every week a British greengrocer is shutting up shop from Edinburgh to Coventry, Redcar to Builth Wells. In the process they’re creating ‘fruit and veg deserts’ across the country. Our communities are poorer for it, so are people’s diets. It’s no wonder nine out of ten children and three quarters of adults in the UK aren’t getting enough fresh produce. 

Slowly but surely greengrocers are disappearing, like biodiversity loss across our farmland and the silent spring that follows, our cultural life too is being quietly denuded. Many greengrocers are closing after decades, some after a century or more, retiring after a hard-working life, and no willing heir to take on the business.

It’s not surprising when they’re faced with wafer-thin margins, a cost-of-living crisis, sky-high rents, business rates and utility bills, as well as razor-sharp competition from the big supermarkets with their just-in-time supply chains and cut-throat deals with farmers. The final nail in the coffin is an underpriced 19p bag of Christmas carrots from the chains. Yet their demise is largely unsung and undocumented.

Greengrocers don’t have a single voice, or an association, that can stick up for the trade. In early 1997 there were 6,916 registered, according to the tax man. This declined perilously to 3,948 in 2008 and by 2021 there were thought to be just 2,595. In the light of recent closures, it’s likely that two thirds of our independent fruit and veg shops have shut up shop in 30 years.

“What we’ve seen is a cultural cleansing of our social infrastructure. But I’m hoping the tide is turning. There’s an underlying yearning for real food now that’s sweeping the nation. People feel they’ve been starved of nutritious fruit and veg for far too long,” explains Patrick Holden, founder and CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust. 

He adds: “It’s a big issue. The countrywide lattice work of regional producers has now gone, this once fed into a thriving nationwide system of regional wholesalers that served local, healthy fruit and veg to greengrocers and then to the public. This has largely been dismantled.”

Some towns are in a perilous state where ‘fruit and veg deserts’ are then replaced by ‘food swamps,’ full of fast food outlets and shops selling ultra-processed products that offer higher returns because of their long shelf life. This lack of access is killing us – in 2019, diets low in fruit and veg led to 16,000 premature deaths in the UK. 

Torquay, which has a population of 52,000 has no independent greengrocer in the town centre. Liverpool, where just under half a million people live, has only a handful. In areas of Everton and Kirkby, residents now have to travel more than a kilometre or walk 15 minutes to reach even a supermarket selling ‘fresh’ produce.

“We need many more local fruit and veg shops and stalls in every community. We have lost so many of these, they are desperately needed in Liverpool and they should be a public health priority for the city,” said MP, Ian Byrne on X earlier this year. 

Lack of greengrocers is a nail in the community coffin

Greengrocers aren’t just an answer to the ‘Tescofication’ of our fresh produce needs, they’re also an antidote to other woes. They use less packaging than supermarkets and reduce food waste, since shoppers only buy what they need. People aren’t forced into multi-buys. They can also reduce food miles by championing hyper-local growers.

“Many promote seasonality and provenance. They also have expertise and knowledge shoppers can tap into, so people can switch veg to save money. I still maintain strongly the relevance and necessity of having good independent, fresh produce retailers,” explains Chris Bavin, who has worked in fruit and veg for 25 years, runs an import business, and is now a television presenter. 

The value of greengrocers was brought into stark relief last year when shelves across the country’s largest supermarkets emptied due to bad weather in southern Europe. Many independent fruit and veg sellers were largely unaffected since they were more flexible with pricing, ensured growers were paid fairly and weren’t locked into contracts with mass producers.  

“They certainly offered resilience in supply. The pandemic was also a shot in the arm for fruit and veg retail when greengrocers worked tirelessly to support their communities. Even today they are still supplying food banks, school breakfast clubs and charitable organisations,” details Bavin. 

He still wants to create a governing body for the country’s greengrocers, so they have one voice, collective buying power and are more able to market themselves as a consortium to the British public in a 21^st Century bid to change peoples’ shopping habits. So what are other answers to their demise? 

Planning is one. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver gave evidence to the UK Parliament a few years go insisting local councils specify greengrocers as ‘essential retail,’ to prevent them being replaced by hairdressers, junk food outlets or vape stores. Others think fruit and veg access should be a priority for new neighbourhoods built in Britain, especially with the revitalisation of local housebuilding targets — access and planning for healthy food is often an afterthought or no consideration at all. 

This mirrors Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy, which called for investment in local infrastructure, such as fresh produce street markets, “which will make it easier to eat healthily and affordably.” The same strategy encourages GPs to prescribe fruit and vegetables. This could be a shot in the arm for the greengrocer trade. 

Fruit and veg on prescription

A scheme already exists in East London, where 200 people experiencing food poverty and food-related ill-health have been prescribed vouchers to purchase fresh produce at local greengrocers including market stalls (they cannot use them at supermarkets). This saw participants eating 3.2 more portions of fruit and veg a day, a 40 per cent reduction in GP visits and £222,000 invested back into the local economy.  

“This is about access to good fruit and veg, and ensuring that the food economy stays viable and sustainable for the long term. If we lose those places of retail, then our diet, health and food poverty get worse. So we need to maintain these points of access,” states Jonathan Pauling, CEO of Alexandra Rose Charity which administered the scheme.

So-called Rose vouchers (£4 for every child per week) now help low income families in eight locations around the UK from Glasgow to Barnsley. In the last decade, social prescribing of fruit and veg has supported over 10,500 families. 

This also supports 60 or so market traders and greengrocers, plus a mobile fruit and veg van that accepts prescriptions; £1 in every five cashed by produce sellers is now a Rose voucher. Many more schemes like this could revitalise local, independent fresh fruit and veg sellers. But it is not easy. 

“It’s best to not have rose-tinted glasses over the challenge of selling fruit and veg. Somebody has to get up at three o’clock in the morning to go and buy from the wholesale supply chain. They set up shop on a high street which is dying, which doesn’t have much footfall, except for the bookies and the takeaways, and you try and sell perishable goods, it’s difficult,” states Pauling. 

He continues: “When we started in Barnsley, there were seven fruit and veg traders in the central market. I think there’s now three. There could be other models that work.” 

Go mobile

Another solution which is supported by the same charity could also inspire the trade. This involves a mobile greengrocer van pitching up at impoverished fruit and veg deserts and other spots to ply their trade. The Queen of Greens is a pioneering social enterprise scheme, also in Liverpool and Knowsley. It has a lot of potential because overheads are kept low. The van uses free parking spots outside schools, hospitals and children’s centres. It services 40 stops each week.    

“The main reason why we use a mobile bus is because we don’t have to rent premises or pay business rates,” explains Lucy Antal, senior project manager at Feedback Global, which helped start the scheme. “The issue is that the sale of fruit and veg has been left purely to capitalism and the pursuit of profits. It’s not understanding the social and health value of good access to fresh produce.” 

Antal is now looking to tap into the Liverpool Food Growers Network. A project which aims to increase the amount of fresh fruit and veg supplied by local communities. This produce could then be sold via Queen of Greens. 

Certainly, joining the dots between new growers, produce sellers, local authorities and health outcomes is vital. It’s starting to happen, but its slow. The greengrocer trade needs to evolve and redefine itself if it’s to survive. More pop-up traders with limited overheads and links to local growers could be one answer. Hopefully this can happen before the last one shuts up shop.    

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