Ethical business scoops award

12:43pm Friday 18th April 2008

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THE team behind an organic farm shop in north Craven has scooped a top industry prize for its ethical approach to business, reports Ellis Hargreaves.

Clapham-based Growing with Grace picked up the Soil Association's Best Small Shop title at an Organic Awards ceremony on Sunday, in recognition of its pioneering community composting scheme and mouth-watering vegetable boxes.

Neil Marshall, one of the company's directors, said: "We run a farm shop but it's different from other small shops in that customers can see their purchases growing and, alongside the shop, we supply the community with vegetables through our box scheme."

The holistic approach to growing does not stop there either: every week the GWG team get up to 18 tonnes of green waste collected from local residents and delivered to them by Craven District Council so they can spend the next seven weeks turning it into compost to help their produce grow.

"It is quite an holistic approach to growing which I suppose is quite unusual," added Mr Marshall. "We are part of a similar scheme in Clapham that sees used vegetable oil turned into bio-diesel too, and we fuel our delivery vans with that when they go out with the clients' boxes."

Since it was set up in 2000, Growing with Grace has been named Organic Grower of the Year by The Grower magazine and last year it was given a Social Enterprise Award for innovation in enterprise. The business also impressed educational charity the Plunkett Foundation so much that it recently gave it a grant to help hire a rural marketing project worker.

Growing with Grace's Soil Association gong was collected by director Chris Hart at a ceremony in London on Sunday.

"Small rural businesses are often a bit up against it really, so receiving this national recognition is a huge boost for our customers and the workforce," added Mr Marshall.