We hope you are all well and are grateful for your patience as we have adapted operations in the shop recently.
If you are able to come to the shop, please do, as we have limited capacity for deliveries. If you would like to pre-order and pre-pay for a fruit and veg box to speed up your visit, see here.
Food deliveries
We want to support more self-isolating or vulnerable people in Bruntsfield and nearby communities to get their groceries.
We can supply fresh fruit and veg bags (organic and non-organic options) at different sizes – £8, £16, £24 and add essentials: bread, milk and eggs.
Our volunteers are delivering on Fridays to Bruntsfield and local communities including Morningside, Marchmont, Polwarth, Merchiston, Shandon and Grange. To order a veg bag or a delivery, download our order form and email it to us at orders@diginbruntsfield.co.uk and wait for confirmation.
Supporters Account
To make it easier to shop for yourself and others you can get a Dig-In Supporters Account. The card can be topped up by bank transfer, so a volunteer or friend can pay for your shopping or you can pay remotely if you are getting a delivery.
Changes to opening hours
We are closing the shop while we get deliveries and to clean and re-stock the shelves (often around lunch-time).
Monday – Wednesday: 10am – 6pm On these days we also usually close at 1pm for cleaning/lunch Thursday- Friday: 11.30am – 6pm Saturday: 11.30am – 5pm Sunday: closed
Opening hours are subject to change at short notice due to staff and volunteer availability. Keep an eye on the door and our Facebook page for regular updates.
Thank you to our community for being so understanding in what have been the most challenging few weeks we’ve ever seen at Dig-In. We are working towards maintaining trading throughout this difficult time and while we protect our amazing team of staff and volunteers, bring in new processes and ramp up our veg box offerings, we only ask that you are patient.
If you have sent in a veg box form, please wait until you have had confirmation from us before you come to pick it up. Bear with us while we try carve out a new normal so we can ensure we can weather this crisis and be back to our bustling wee shop on the other side.
Covid-19 Update
Dear Dig-In community and shareholders,
The Dig-In Management Committee and staff have been in regular communication over the past few days to ensure we are taking all possible precautions to keep staff, volunteers and the community safe during the Covid-19 crisis. We are aware the situation is constantly in flux and, so are regularly checking government advice and are planning accordingly.
Some key changes we have brought in (subject to change):
Please be mindful when visiting Dig-In and avoid buying in bulk wherever necessary, so we can ensure our whole community has access to food. We are limiting the purchase of wholefoods/grocery items to two items per person. This does not include individual fruit/veg items.
Additionally, as our shop is small and we are having a high visitor turnout we ask you to restrict numbers in the shop to only two customers at a time. Please wait outside until someone has left.
If you can, please pay by credit/debit card or with your supporters account. We want to minimise cash handling as far as possible.
If you have any symptoms, please do not come into the shop.
We are also aware that members of our community may be affected in different ways, so we are being flexible with our veg box scheme and are offering deliveries to those in need.
We want to reassure you that we are doing as much as we can in the circumstances. Priority areas:
1. Volunteers
We have communicated to volunteers that our primary concern is their health and safety and that they should not feel duty-bound to act at risk to their own physical or mental health well-being. Because of this, we may need to close intermittently or change our core opening hours to allow for regular breaks. Additionally, we have given guidance on what procedures to follow if they feel unwell. We anticipate a need for additional support so would ask anyone who wishes to offer voluntary help to fill in our volunteer application form on our website, so we can assess what support we may have should this need arise.
2. Staff
A plan has been written up to make sure we’re looking after staff in the event of sickness or self-isolation. Our current sick pay policy applies to all staff and allows for up to two weeks (pro-rata) of full pay before Statutory Sick Pay starts. If we have to close the business or operate on reduced hours, we will still pay all staff for their contracted hours. We are investigating government assistance available to support our staff team.
3. Training
We remain committed to ensuring that all staff and volunteers are kept in the loop with our plans and communications, and adequately trained to deal with the new measures we are operating within the business.
4. Stock
Due to higher sales, we have streamlined some of our ranges to ensure we have adequate stock of some of our bestselling daily and pantry essentials. Please consider others and buy considerately.
5. Food handling
We have put in place additional daily hygiene practices to reduce food handling, and these will be reviewed on an ongoing basis. Currently, there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with the transmission of the virus. All staff and volunteers now wear vinyl gloves when handling food or cash. We would appreciate your support in using our contactless payment system wherever possible.
6. Suppliers
We understand the increased demand for some of our suppliers and wish to help support and strengthen these local food supply networks, wherever possible. Therefore, despite our increased workload, we are committed to ensuring that our administrative procedures and supplier payments remain a priority.
And finally…
As the situation is evolving, we are grateful to have built up reserves over the last couple of years to weather us through some storms and at the moment we are hopeful to not need any significant injections of cash to keep the business afloat. We will, however, be suspending share withdrawals at this time.
We would like to give a big thank you (and a virtual hug) to our staff and volunteers for the very hard work they have contributed at Dig In over the past couple of weeks. The management committee acknowledges the additional risk that working to keep our community-owned enterprise open and stocked with food from our local and sustainable suppliers poses. We want to assure the community we are taking this very seriously and researching various options in which we can support reduced contact within the shop, whilst still serving the community, and supporting local food supply chains.
It is in difficult times like these when the community pulls together and local businesses can shine as examples for community resilience. Owned by the community and run for the community: we hope to continue to supply you with groceries with respect for our community and with good humour. If you think you can help us on this journey please do help us by becoming a (shareholding) member of Dig-In or registering your interest in volunteering, or both!
Open event – all welcome – Monday 10th February 2020 – 6-8pm
Christ Church Centre, 6a Morningside Road, Edinburgh, EH10 4DD
Please join us for our 7th Annual General Meeting of Dig-In Bruntsfield, your local community greengrocer. Come hear how things have gone over the last financial year and plans for the year ahead. We’ll be publishing our draft accounts to all members in advance of the meeting.
We are also delighted to be joined by Sarah-Jane Allsop from Castle Douglas Community Forum who recently took on their own community owned tourist information centre and shop ‘Heart of Galloway’ and are committed to making Castle Douglas a good food town and working closely with food producers and local retailers.
We’ll have the usual snacks and drinks and will finish up the evening with a facilitated group discussion on ‘Hopes for a Better Food Future’ – considering how we engage with COP coming to Scotland and our voice on the ongoing climate emergency. You can read about our volunteer Fiona’s latest vision of our ‘Game Plan for a Good Food Nation’ in our blog.
Register here and receive updates on further details.
Join our team! We are seeking new Management Committee members, these are voluntary positions and are a great opportunity to learn more about how our community shop works in practice and make a positive contribution to our community. You can read our Dig-In Strategy 2021 for more info. Contact isla@diginbruntsfield.co.uk for more information.
Community Engagement
We’re actively looking for someone this year to take forward our publicity and community engagement parts of our strategy. You will have:
Experience using different channels to communicate messages and engage customers;
Ideas to improve the way we engage with the community through events with staff and volunteers;
With support from staff and other volunteers, you will have responsibility for:
Supporting staff and MC to write and design news articles and newsletters (using Mailchimp and WordPress)
Regular contribution to our social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook);
Supporting staff and volunteers with community events (Programme TBC)
Attending monthly Management Committee meetings (2 hours per month);
Participating in the Annual General Meeting (usually held in February).
Volunteer Champion
We’re actively looking for a new volunteer champion to support in our goal to be a wonderful place to work and volunteer. We are interested in applications from fresh faces and existing volunteers who are looking to broaden their involvement with the running of Dig-In. You will have:
Experience in working with people to develop their confidence, skills and aspirations;
Interest in working with and training volunteers to encourage participation in a broad range of our activities (behind the scenes as well as behind the counter!)
With support from staff and the Management Committee, our Volunteer Champion will have shared responsibility to:
Deliver volunteer training events throughout the year for new and existing volunteers to upskill them and build confidence;
Take a fresh look at how we better support volunteers through their journey with us and improve communications between staff, the committee and other volunteers;
Organise occasional volunteer events and socials;
Attend monthly Management Committee meetings (2 hours per month);
Participate in the Annual General Meeting (usually held in February).
Good all rounders!
We’re also welcoming applications from those who have an interest in sustainable food, retail and community enterprise who would like to contribute to the continuing success of our enterprise as we reach 6 years of trading on Bruntsfield Place.
You could have an interest, skills or experience in:
Sustainable food systems in Scotland, cooking, baking, growing or supply chains
HR, finance, business and retailing
Organisation and governance of community enterprises and knowledge of community shares
Management Committee members have a responsibility to:
Contribute on average 1 hour/week in your specific area of choice;
Attend monthly Management Committee meetings (2hrs per month);
Participate in the Annual General Meeting (usually held in February).
New Management Committee members are normally elected at our AGM which is coming up on Monday 10th February 2020. To give prospective committee members an opportunity to find out more before committing to joining we are encouraging people to get in touch in advance.
Just drop our Chairperson Isla McCulloch an email on isla@diginbruntsfield.co.uk and she will arrange an informal meeting or call with relevant staff and MC members to chat through the role in more detail. To allow enough time for this, we’d appreciate any notes of interest by Monday 13th January and you would be invited to join us on the 20th January at our Management Committee meeting to find out more. Please include in your email a short paragraph outlining which role you feel most suitable for and why.
This year we sent our Shop Manager Morag and Volunteer Fiona to the Nourish Conference 2019. This is Fiona’s take on the event:
Volunteering at Dig In is a happy endeavour.
Greengrocering in a local community owned enterprise supporting local growers and producers serving friendly, interested customers is a delightful ‘location’ to be in our national food system. However, our food consumption and food systems are highly contested, in a state of enormous inequality and environmental dysfunction.
The Nourish Conference 2019 ‘Game Plan For A Good Food Nation’ brought together people from across Scotland and beyond from every nook and cranny of our food chain to share information, debate ideas and plan for a more equitable and sustainable food system in Scotland.
Firstly, it was warm, welcoming, exciting and … Nourishing! It was wonderful to meet with so many (over 120) growers, farmers, suppliers, processors, distributors and campaigners from across our amazing, vital and complex food system.
Secondly, it was an explosion of connections: from air miles to food banks, from equitable working conditions for small growers to national food excess, from sustainable local food production to iniquitous large scale farm food subsidies. A ‘right to eat well and a right to fair and sustainable food system’ was top of everyone’s agenda, as Sue Pritchard one of the key speakers put it “healthy food is everybody’s business”.
Thirdly, it was a call to action! Over the two days we listened, debated and learned from each other about our food systems from people from every nook and cranny of Scotland’s food chain. Importantly we pinned down actions that we promote to create a fairer, healthier food system. From personal actions such as mindful purchasing and community involvement to political demands such as a right to food in Scots Law and food labelling that includes the environmental impact of a product.
It was an inspiring conference which refocused the essential, vital impact a wee community owned shop like Dig In can make promoting a progressive, equitable, sustainable food system.
This week we’ll be celebrating 5 years since Dig in opened its doors in our beautiful corner of Edinburgh.
We have come a long way during this time, and to help us think about the impact our small shop makes in the community, we asked some of our youngest, most loyal customers what they like about having Dig in nearby:
Milk in glass jars from the Wee Isle Dairy on the Isle of Gigha off the southwest coast of Scotland.
‘I like Dig in because it’s small and it’s the only one of its kind. ‘Cause there are lots of Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, but only one Dig in.’ – aged 7
Dig in community greengrocer in Bruntsfield. Photo by: Lauren McGlynn
‘I like the fruit and nut bars’ – aged 4
‘The fruit doesn’t have as much plastic packaging, and the milk comes in glass!’- aged 7
Memories from an early age
The following conversation from one of our Dig in families shows how influential even small moments around the shop can be:
“I like my pomegranate” was one child’s response to what he likes about Dig in.
Pomegranates? His mum asked, thinking it had been more than a year since she’d bought pomegranates, since they had been away when they were in season this winter.
Amanda’s son went on to say that he likes the people who work in the shop and how many different fruits there are at Dig-In.
On reflection, Amanda realised that he was remembering particularly tasty and beautiful pomegranates that they had found at Dig in nearly 18 months ago.
After all this time, her then 3-year-old held onto this memory for a few reasons –
Taste – these pomegranates tasted great, the best Amanda’s ever had.
Story – since their family talks a lot about the food they buy and eat, these seasonal red beauties gave them something new to learn. They made time to talk about the vitamins in particularly colourful fruit and veg and how although pomegranates don’t grow well in Scotland, Dig in tries to bring seasonal fruit and veg into the shop from nearby countries like Spain.
Beautiful – ‘they looked good, were displayed beautifully and every time we went anywhere after that with pomegranates, he has wanted one!’
In Amanda’s words…
So, I guess the reason we support Dig in is because it has beautiful produce, as local as we can get, which is important to us. It’s also supporting the community we live in and it helps us feed and educate us and our family about the joys of food, food issues and eating well. We go in there to chat as much as to buy, and it makes us feel part of the community – particularly having no family ties ourselves.
It feels good to be buying fresh local produce, supporting the community and hopefully helping solve our huge global issues in a very small local way.
We couldn’t agree more, and we’re so glad you and your family are a part of our community!
Birthday celebrations – this Saturday
Thanks to all our customers for keeping us open here at the heart of Bruntsfield, and come see us on Saturday 27th April to celebrate our 5th Birthday with us!
This week we said farewell to Katariina, who has been a member of the Dig in team for more than 3 years. She started with us as a volunteer and later joined our staff team as a shop supervisor, primarily running the shop on Saturdays. Katariina brought incredible enthusiasm, warmth and energy to the team over the years, and she will certainly be missed. Thankfully, she’s not going very far!
Katariina has taken a role as a full time member of New Leaf Coop, located in nearby Marchmont, Edinburgh. We wish her all the very best as she takes this next step, and we’ll be round to visit you at New Leaf soon!
New shop supervisor – Steph Marsden
You may have noticed that there’s a new face around the Dig in staff team – we are delighted to welcome Steph Marsden as a new shop supervisor!
Steph comes to us with great experience in food and retail. She completed the MSc Gastronomy course at QMU last year (along with Management Committee member, Robyn) and ran the Leith Food Assembly for 18 months. Steph also works part time running a small craft business and has a website foodplayfood.com
We hope you’ll make Steph feel right at home in her new role with us.
Save the Date – Dig In Bruntsfield’s AGM will be held 6-8pm, Monday 25th February 2019, at Christ Church Morningside, 6a Morningside Road, Edinburgh, EH10 4DD.
Following formal business, we’re delighted to be hosting a short talk from Donald Reid, shareholder and Food & Drink Editor for The List who will give us his view on the food and drink industry in Scotland and our role within it.
Register here and receive updates on further details.
Call for Management Committee members
Are you passionate about Dig In’s values and want to support the success of our community-owned greengrocer in Edinburgh? Do you have a few hours each month to volunteer with Dig In?
We’re looking for new members to join the Management Committee this year. Elections will be held at the upcoming AGM on Monday, 25th February.
Please email our Chair, Isla McCulloch, if you are interested or read on for more information.
Publicity and Community Engagement coordinator
One key role we’re looking to fill this year is someone to take forward our publicity and community engagement strategy. This person will have:
strong skills and experience using social media to communicate messages and engage customers;
interest in working with staff and volunteers to develop and improve the way we engage with the community;
We’re just about thawing out after what was an incredibly eventful week in the life of our wee shop.
Tuesday evening, the snow starting drifting in as we gathered for our 5th AGM, reflecting on the successes of last year and catching up with our members, shareholders, volunteers and community built through this wee unassuming grocers. Little did we know that the Beast from the East was on her way, wreaking havoc with our food supply and collective ability to function…. or did it?
Notice of Annual General Meeting of Bruntsfield Community Greengrocer Limited, and Election of Management Committee Members
You are warmly invited to attend the 5th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Bruntsfield Community Greengrocer (trading as Dig-In) to be held in Christ Church (church centre next to the church) at Holy Corner, Bruntsfield, Edinburgh, arrival at 7pm for 7.15pm start on Tuesday 27th February 2018.
The formal AGM proceedings will be preceded by ‘Community Confidence and Carrots’: a talk from Rob Davidson, Manager of the Cyrenians Farm Enterprise from where we source a range of organic salads and vegetables. We’re delighted to be hearing from Rob about how by running a working farm they are also able to sustain a home for a community of young vulnerable people, many with experiences of homelessness.
Experience using different channels to communicate messages and engage customers;
This week we said farewell to Katariina, who has been a member of the Dig in team for more than 3 years. She started with us as a volunteer and later joined our staff team as a shop supervisor, primarily running the shop on Saturdays. Katariina brought incredible enthusiasm, warmth and energy to the team over the years, and she will certainly be missed. Thankfully, she’s not going very far!
have noticed that there’s a new face around the Dig in staff team – we are delighted to welcome Steph Marsden as a new shop supervisor!
