A word from our young customers

A word from our young customers

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!

How we made our Veg Bags

You may have noticed that the lovely veg bags that were made and sold a couple of weeks ago had our logo on them. Instead of spending any money to make them, we put our heads together and got creative to brand up our carriers. We used left over materials donated by one of our volunteers, made a stencil and sprayed it on the bags. It was a bit of trial and error but judging by the reaction to the bags, definitely worth it.

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Stencilling is a really cheap and easy way to add your brand to something and spread the word. This tutorial will cover how we cut and sprayed the stencil to our bags. Read more

Soup Saturdays Throughout February

soups
Throughout February the shop has been open for Soup Saturdays. It’s an opportunity for passers by to drop in, have some free home made soup and learn about Dig-In. The drop-in’s, which run weekly from 11am-3pm have been a fantastic sucess so far and we’ve met lots of amazing people, shareholders and eager volunteers who want to help out.

We still have two more soup Saturday’s taking place on the 15th and 22nd of February so if you’re in the area, come along to 119 Bruntsfield Place, try some delicious homemade soup, and find out more about our plans.

Welcome To The Shop!

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It’s been a busy month for the Dig-In team. Since November, not only have we launched our Community Share Offer but we now have a premesis in Brunstfield to call home.

119 Bruntsfield Place (previously Smart Cartridge) has had a little makeover since we got the keys on December 1st. The team have been painting the walls and scrubbing the surfaces to get the shop prepared for the next step, turning it into YOUR community Green Grocer.
Read more