Keeping going
And once you’ve set up what do you need to do to keep it running successfully?
You’ll need to think about the following.
- Selling enough fruit and veg! So you’ll need to recruit enough customers to generate enough income to cover your costs.
- Managing your costs so the scheme runs efficiently: know what cash is coming in and where is can be best spent to ensure your farmers, suppliers, customers and staff are all happy.
- Running an efficient and effective operation: the key is motivated staff who know what they are doing and why. You’ll need to think in particular about flexible part-time staff to carry out mainly packing the food bags but also delivery, setting up and other odd jobs.
- Developing and maintaining good relationships with the local authority and other key partners: they will regulate you, possibly help you with cheap premises or land, and generally make life easier for you.
- Operating within the values and Key Principles of Growing Communities. If you are interested in following the Growing Communities Model for a sustainable and resilient community-led food enterprise, this means you agree with our (limited) reporting requirements and you may need to make changes if we ask you to.
To do all this you will need a management team with the right knowledge, skills and motivation to stay involved - this will all be part of your thinking about the type of people and mixture of skills you need.
Being able to access free or subsidised resources such as grants, pro bono help and volunteers, and land/premises will make it much easier. But most important of all is a loyal group of customers who identify with your values. Through our start-up programme (see link below) we hope to be able to help participating communities with all of this!
