More Is More

 
Bill's Produce Stores in the southern English towns of Lewes and Brighton are not only sizeable market places with lush displays of fruit, vegetables and other specially selected retail products. They have also café and restaurant qualities. The USP of this conceptual triumvirate: produce is both the design and the public- relation star. Now that four experienced financial partners from the foodservice sector have come on board, the mini chain is ready for roll out.
 
Just try to take a brief look around without having your eyes come out on stalks and feeling an irresistible urge to help yourself, touch the produce or take a bite? That's something that only a very few extremely self-controlled people are likely to succeed in. This is because Bill's Produce Store is not only tempting but also future-oriented evidence that entrepreneurs can inspire a broad mass of consumers with uncompromising freshness, a green lifestyle and dramatically presented opulence. Naturally, 20 years' experience as a retailer doesn't hurt either. Before Bill Collison launched his Produce Store in 2001, he was a ‘simple' greengrocer without any foodservice experience. Where the first business ended is where the new one started - in Lewes, a town of around 16,000 inhabitants some 70 km to the south of London. The second store is in Brighton, not far away on the south coast. Both outlets represent an annual turnover in excess of £2 m each, most of it generated by the cafe business. The leitmotif of the hybrid formula: aesthetically presented opulence as far as the eye can see. No matter where you go or stand, richly filled baskets and dishes, not to mention boxes and buckets with fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers, line the aisles. Ingredients that either land in shopping bags or become part of imaginatively arranged food creations on restaurant plates.
 

 
Impressive, expansive, simply overwhelming - descriptions that also apply unequivocally to the toppings, the decorations on flans and cakes. Indeed, it rather looks as if the bakery products are covered by a colourful cross between a flowering meadow and herb bed. Fruit and chocolate offer the edible plants a firm hold. A mouth-watering presentation that is very likely unparalleled far and wide.
 

 
The furniture is as plain as the product range and display are opulent. Dark wooden shelves against white-painted brick walls frame the room and the precisely laid-out F&B products. Lower down are rows of the company's branded creations, such as dressings, jams, confectionery, juices and even beer. Thanks to this well thought-out arrangement with its neat lines and groups, the sales areas are turned into decorative eye-catchers that mitigate the robust industrial design of the buildings. This look attracts not only young families but also business people, best agers with their grandchildren and trend-conscious twentysomethings. In a nutshell: "The produce is the design and the public-relation star at the same time," says Marcus Cload, one of the four directors who joined in partnership with Collison in 2008. Their joint goal: to grow the business successfully, ethically and profitably from its small base of two cafes on the south coast. A task that involves optimising all operations in such a way that bottom-line profitability improves without effecting the key propositions of the concept - namely its original energy,spirit and sense of being grounded in the local community.
 
http://www.billsproducestore.co.uk/
 

 
| 22 February 2010 | Heike Hucht |