Union Market — promising a new “middle way” in grocery and natural food retailing — opened its first store in Fulham, West London yesterday (July 8 2010).
With the strapline ‘The Great British Grocer’, Union Market aims to combine the best aspects of “authentic, real farmers’ markets” with the advantages of a supermarket – long operating hours, daily opening and a regular product range. Crucially, it also aims to offer affordability, with prices benchmarked to high street supermarkets in the Fulham area.
The new flagship store is situated on London’s Fulham Broadway, and occupies the old booking office at Fulham Broadway Undeground station. The 5,000 sq ft food hall aims to carry everything for a weekly or daily shop. The layout is indoor market-style, with nine clearly-marked departments for bread and baked goods, meat, fresh fruit and vegetables, teas and coffees, dairy, frozen, deli, grocery, cooked prepared take-out foods, and wines & spirits.
A state of the art kitchen is visible through the old ticket office counters, where well-cooked fresh food is prepared for the Union Market Kitchen, situated at the very centre of the store. This offers meals and drinks right through the day — from full English breakfasts and healthy light lunches to cream teas.
Union Market is the brainchild of organic farmer and business investor Tony Bromovsky. The new retailer also has significant financial backing from one of London’s leading hedge fund managers, Crispin Odey — not only did this make possible the Fulham store’s £1 million fit-out, it also plants Bromovsky’s stated aim of opening “two to three stores in London a year, and then going nationwide” in the realms of business reality.
Natural Products visited the new Fulham Broadway store on its opening day and talked to Bromovsky about the thinking behind the Union Market retail model. “The whole thing has been about two and a half years in the making. I’d been very impressed with many aspects of the farmers’ market movement but recognised that it didn’t always offer the most convenient way to shop. So we aimed to generate a third way — or a middle way — between the authentic, real farmers’ markets and the boring chore of food shopping with one of the industrial retailers, which most people would probably say was efficient but soulless.
“…we aimed to generate a third way — or a middle way — between the authentic, real farmers’ markets and the boring chore of food shopping with one of the industrial retailers”
“Union Market is underpinned by three key values — we’re British (80% of the food we sell is British), we’re slower, and we’re about quality. But we also think affordability is important, so we’ve benchmarked our prices against local Fulham stores — including the supermarkets (which, as Bromovsky told The Independent, makes its prices “much lower” than Whole Foods). We’re not a penny more than Waitrose for groceries, while a breakfast (full English £5, poached egg and soldiers £2.20) costs the same as the local greasy spoon.”
“We’re not a penny more than Waitrose for groceries, while a breakfast (full English £5, poached egg and soldiers £2.20) costs the same as the local greasy spoon.”
So, how does Union Market prioritise between, say, local and organic, British and ethical — particularly when affordability is a key yardstick? “The way I’d describe it is to say that all our food comes with values — high animal welfare, minimal or low impact packaging and building materials; we recycle all our waste including food waste, we deliver using an electric van and we are very strict on our ingredients. There are a lot of organic products in the store, but we’re not fanatical about organic sourcing. Most of our fruit and veg growers are LEAF certified and we see that as evidence of best farming practice. As regards local, that’s not always an easy concept in London, so we probably think more regionally. But, where we can, we’ll source locally. For example, we’ve got a local Fulham Primary School growing some of our veg.
“Seasonality is also important to us. We’ve developed a British Fruit and Veg Calendar which shows the growing seasons for 35 different British fruit and veg. When there’s a gap on the calendar, there won’t be any veg — and we’ll be trying to get our customers to understand and actually welcome that.”
Getting these ‘value messages’ over to customers in an “informed but non-preachy” way means ensuring staff are well trained in the issues. And here again Union Market shows impressive attention to detail. As well as recruiting some well known names into key positions (retail director Martyn Barrett coming across from Selfridges, and head of buying Aylie Cooke, previously at Whole Foods), around half of Union Market’s shop floor staff are graduates. Perhaps more imporantly, says Bromovsky, “all of them go out to see our supplier and growers so they can talk knowledgeably and passionately about the food they are selling.”
To say it’s early days at Union Market would be a bit of an understatement. But by the time I leave the store after my interview the place is already thronging with shoppers — and, very noticeably, they are actually buying not just browsing. At the doorway I hear someone announce audibly “thank God, this is what we’ve been waiting for!”. More prosaically, Bromovsky tells me “I hear it’s been very quiet in Starbucks this morning.”
Bromovsky — and Union Market’s backers — clearly believe their new retail model has legs. “Who wouldn’t want to buy affordable but good quality food in an enjoyable shopping environment? So we’re aiming to have 10 Union Market stores in London, probably adding two or three a year until we reach that level.”
Union Market isn’t the first London-based natural foods retailer to declare its ambitions to have 10 stores dotted around the capital. But it might just be the first to get there.
Jim Manson
