Shopping local became a necessity during lockdown, particularly for those who couldn’t leave their home, and one greengrocer in Kendal made sure they never let a customer down during the most difficult of times.

Dobson’s Fruit and Vegetables’ town centre location at Highgate has allowed them to build up a loyal customer base with their high quality fresh produce providing excellent value for money.

Their service remained vital during the coronavirus pandemic and owner Andy Dobson, along with son Greg and his girlfriend Alice Wills, worked tirelessly to ensure food went out to those who could no longer come to their shop.

Andy Dobson said: “We chose to stay open because we’re old school; we don’t want to let anyone down.

“We’d had hundreds of people be very appreciative for what we’ve done. Although I own the business and I buy everything myself, my lad and his girlfriend are the ones who should take the credit.

“They’re the ones who get the orders up, get in early in the morning at 4 o’clock to take in the deliveries. I’m just the man who buys them, but there again I go to the market almost every night.”

Dobson’s are still running their delivery service despite them being able to ease lockdown measures in their shop over the last six weeks and are one of the few grocers in the area who haven’t seen a sharp drop-off in demand for their service of late.

“We literally do tons of them,” Andy Dobson said, adding: “People are very appreciative with what we’re doing.

“My favourite quote comes from one of the women who came into the shop and asked if she could have a word and I went ‘yeah, what was it?

“She then said ‘I thought I’d lost my tastebuds until I tasted your English tomatoes’ so it’s things like that which make you feel good.”

It certainly makes the time Andy puts sourcing quality products worthwhile, or as he puts it: “We don’t take the mick, we don’t charge for a delivery and, dare I say it, we don’t buy rubbish because you’ll only sell rubbish once.

“But again, credit should go to my lad and Alice because people are always saying ‘thank you Mr Dobson,’ and that’s all very nice, but the way they present it goes a long way.”

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