Working together with local suppliers

Did you know we have 61 suppliers in our Love Local💚 range - 7 of which are brand new to us this year - and we stock 200 different lines across our trading areas? During lockdown many local suppliers found their usual clients and sources of income dramatically reduced when businesses had to close quickly.

Fortunately we were in a position to help out and provide them with a place to sell their products when their usual avenues were halted.

One such business is Lincolnshire Poacher Cheese, based at Ulceby Grange Farm near Alford. They produce hand-made butter for a number of restaurants and hotels across the UK but saw their orders drop off overnight the minute the country was put into lockdown. Find out more here about how we were able to support them during this time with extra orders of their products.

Another is Blyton ice cream, who had to temporarily close, but we took on their products and introduced them to our food stores in the Blyton area to enable them to keep going.

Not only have we helped our suppliers but they have helped us too - bread and eggs were highly sort-after items during lockdown and when we started to struggle to get stock of these through our normal networks, Vine Bakery in Lincoln and Scaman's Eggs in Fulstow came to the rescue.

Working together with our suppliers is something we're very proud of and we're delighted to say that sales of love local products have seen a welcomed boost over lockdown - which has ultimately enabled a lot of local business to keep going.

Sales of local beers were up by 37% compared to last year and local gin by a whopping 61%. It's also clear that the weather was kind as sales of BBQ items such as local charcoal were up 25% and local sausages such as Mountain's Boston Sausage and Grasmere Farm up 22%.

It's Love Local💚 fortnight until 4th October, so why not pop into your nearest Lincolnshire Co-op food store and pick up some delicious treats from the range - you'll also get double dividend too!