A pioneering ‘redistribution supermarket’ is set to open its doors in Edinburgh soon.
Company Shop buy surplus stock from food manufacturers that would have otherwise gone to waste or ended up in landfill, and members can buy it at up to 70% off the normal price. You can bag bargains on products from the likes of M&S, Tesco, Nestle and Waitrose. The shop was set up to help prevent food waste.
Membership of the Company Shop is free, but it’s only open to people who work in the food manufacturing industry, as well as current and retired NHS, Police or Fire Service workers.
They opened up their first Scottish store in Renfrew in December. The company also run Community Shops, which are hubs selling discounted food to people on benefits, as well as offering money advice services and a community kitchen.
All the food sold within the store is in date and perfectly good to eat but is deemed “surplus” and may have otherwise gone to waste due to incorrect or wonky labelling, seasonal packaging or overstock – amongst other reasons.
The company have been redistributing surplus food for five decades . One innovative way they save food from landfill is to take large quantities of chilled stock with short shelf lives and blast freeze them ('chill to freeze'). They then resell them as frozen products.
The new supermarket will be in Wester Hailes.
Jane Marren, Managing Director of Company Shop Group said:
“We are delighted to be opening our second Scottish store in Edinburgh later this year, following the successful launch of Company Shop Renfrew in December. Work is underway to bring our unique model to Wester Hailes as soon as possible, and we are hugely grateful to the local community and our longstanding stock and retail partners for the support they have given so far.
“Our model allows us to work with businesses across Edinburgh and Scotland to support them to reduce their waste, while helping to protect the planet by saving perfectly good products from going to waste and making sure they are instead used for their original purpose – all the while providing discounts to our hard-working members in the food manufacturing industry, NHS and Emergency Services”.
They are currently hiring for a store supervisor who will get a membership to the shop as a perk of the job. You can apply here: https://bit.ly/2SWoBqO
