The Greengrocer

We meet James Potter, owner of The Greengrocer in Bedale don’t think anyone ever plans to be a greengrocer, it’s something you just fall into. For me it started as a Saturday job working on a market stall. Quite a few kids came and went, but I stuck with it.”

“When the stall owners took over the old fruit shop in the centre of Thirsk I went to work for them there. Then in 2015, when they retired, my sister Fiona and I bought the business. After a while I wanted to see a bit more of the world, so I sold my share and went to Canada, where I worked as a ski instructor and cook.

“After two years I came back to Yorkshire and carried on working in catering. But when Covid hit, the restaurant I was with shut overnight and it was clear things weren’t going back to normal any time soon.

“My ambition had always been to be working for myself by the time I was thirty. When some family friends from Bedale told me that the town really needed a greengrocer I enquired into shop rentals and found the property we’re in now, between the Co-op and the butchers.

“I did all the shop-fitting myself and we opened in March 2020, just as the country went into lockdown. We were busy from the get-go because the only place people were allowed to go was to the shops!”

Fresh Start

“On a typical day I will leave home in Thirsk at 4am to drive to the wholesale market in Leeds. I go through the market selecting the fruit and veg that we need, and also check what’s on offer at the plant and flower wholesale market next door.

“I’ll set off for Bedale with a van full of stuff around 7am, and by the time I arrive my staff will have already started setting up the shop. We’re a small, close-knit team and we always have a bit of a laugh, mainly at each other’s expense. Having happy, hard-working staff makes life a lot easier for me and there’s always a nice atmosphere in the shop.

“We’ll sort out what I’ve brought, then I’ll most likely go out making deliveries to individual customers and various pubs and trade clients. We’ve just set up a new website that will make it easy for people to order online, and which I hope in time will be as comprehensive as the shop. But I don’t think online-only would work for us if we didn’t have a bricks-and-mortar shop. The shop is our showcase.”

Keeping It Local

“When I’ve finished delivering there will be plenty of admin to do, including ordering from our local suppliers. We have some very good suppliers pretty much on our doorstep.

“For example, Mr Simpson, who is literally just two miles away, supplies us with potatoes: Sagitta, which is an excellent chipping potato, and Estima, which is good for roasting and mashing. Spilmans of Sessay supply us with asparagus in spring and strawberries in summer.”

“Hudsons in Crakehall provide us with pumpkins and squashes, we get eggs from Manor Farm at Sinderby, and our dairy products come from the Dales Dairies depot at Leeming Bar. There’s a nice little nursery at Knaresborough where we get our spring and summer bedding plants.

“And of course there are lots of other products that we stock that I need to keep track of: jams, chutneys, oils, salad dressings… I like to think that between us and the butcher next door you could get the whole of your weekly grocery shop.”

Quality Counts

“Being a greengrocer isn’t an easy way to make a living. The hours are unsocial and it’s possible to feel a bit isolated. And there are plenty of challenges. Erratic weather and global warming increasingly mean products aren’t available when they should be and prices are extremely volatile. When they go through the roof we swallow as much of the rise as we can but ultimately we just have to trust that our customers appreciate we’re doing our best, and stick with us.”

“On the positive side, one of the satisfying aspects of the job is all the good feedback we get from the regulars who do their weekly shop with us. And in summer, when visitors to the Dales pop in, they often tell us how much they wish they had a shop like ours back at home. Traditional time-served greengrocers like me are a bit of a dying breed, but there’s clearly a demand for what we offer, and in a year or two I would definitely like to open a second shop.

“We strive to have the very best produce possible, and to stock things you simply can’t get in the supermarket. And if there’s something special that a customer wants, we’ll do our level best to get hold of it – luckily I have the contacts to do that. As a small business operating on tight margins we may not be able to beat the big multiple retailers on price but we can very definitely beat them when it comes to quality and service.”

The Greengrocer is in Market Court, Bedale. James’ new website can be found at thegreengrocer.co.uk