Wholesale supply issues for rural stores have inspired Plunkett’s Future of Rural Retail campaign, which will research how small shops can “diver­sify” their supply chains.

Plunkett, a charity representing community-owned shops, was inter­viewed about the project last week by Better Retailing.

Explaining the purpose of the campaign, the charity told Better Retailing: “Grocery wholesalers have prompt­ed some of this change, because it’s becoming harder for small, isolated, rural businesses to deal with the ‘big boys’.”

The comment follows the introduction and increasing of delivery charges and minimum order requirements by major wholesalers in recent years.

The Plunkett represent­ative told Better Retailing: “Booker is by far the dominant whole­saler for our network… they are charging for de­liveries. They are delisting many of our rural shops and it’s becoming harder to get convenience [store] basics in.”

Booker failed to respond to the claims when ap­proached by Better Retailing.

Plunkett consultation sessions to help rural stores are underway

Plunkett’s campaign launched this week with its first consultation in Exeter.

Further sessions will follow in Manchester on 5 March, Pease Pottage, Sussex on 7 March, and an online workshop on 6 March.

The project is based on a roundtable held in Novem­ber last year, which led to rural retailers submitting their views on the chal­lenges and opportunities in rural retailing.

“We had 15 essays, which we are compiling into a vision report, and the upcoming events are us at Plunkett taking that out to our network of community shops,” said a representative of the char­ity, adding that Plunkett saw positive initial results from last year’s meeting.

Describing these results, Plunkett told Better Retailing: “A regional wholesaler, Youings, which is based in south-west England, extended its offer to all community shops around the UK using a third-party palette-distribution service.”

Plunkett is aiming to publish a report in late March based on feedback from retailers in the upcoming workshops, which the charity said will “sow the seeds of the ways rural shops can think about evolving their proposition”.

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