DELI OF THE MONTH In 2017, Richard and Nicola Eckersley took a leap of faith with Richard leaving behind his career in professional football to pursue the more wholesome dream of opening the UK’s first zero-waste shop. Now, their Devon-based operation Earth.Food.Love is inspiring refillable retailing around the world. Interview by Michael Lane
Where the jars are more than half-full YOU’VE HEARD THE one about the banker who quit the city to open a cheese shop. Or the story of the management consultant who cashed in their savings to set up a deli-café. But what about the professional footballer who hung up his boots and founded the country’s first zero-waste shop? “It sounds a bit crazy, doesn’t it?” says Richard Eckersley, who runs Earth.Food.Love. in Totnes with his wife Nicola. “I was getting disillusioned with football and knew that I was coming to the end of my time, even though I was only 27. We just wanted a different life.” In truth, the tale of how Eckersley, who began his career at Manchester United, came to be loading up silos of oats and pulses in a small Devon town is quite well-documented – through countless magazine and newspaper profiles
VITAL STATISTICS
Turnover: £250,000 Number of lines: 300 Staff members: 5 Quantity of jumbo oats sold: 35kg per week
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March 2021 | Vol.21 Issue 2
published when the shop first opened. But now the novelty of his post-football career move has worn off, it appears that the business idea was a good one. The shop is just shy of four years old, it has a healthy £250,000 annual turnover and – even on the bitterly cold February day that FFD visits – customers will still wait patiently to get inside. Not only is Earth. Food. Love a feasible business, it has also now proved to be a trailblazer and a blueprint for other similar retailers who have since set up. “Was it viable? I didn’t know at the time,” says Richard. “Luckily I had money from football and thought I’ll put it into it and see what happens. It’s been sustainable and it’s standing on its own two feet.”
Back in 2016, the plan to dispense loose products hadn’t fully formed in the Eckersleys’ minds. After holidaying in Devon they knew that they wanted to move from Manchester to Totnes. The town is well-known for its independent residents (it once had its own currency) and its love of sustainable practices. And ever since Richard’s playing stint in the US, the couple had been embracing a more environmentally conscious lifestyle, including organic food and veganism. As it happens, the problem of plastic waste was sounding a chord with them at that time. Richard was having to drive their recycling to a centre in Manchester, because their apartment block didn’t even have the bins for it. “I thought ‘There must be another way of
