Best Rural Retailer 2006
Last year, the Countryside Alliance ran a national competition to find the UK’s Best Rural Retailer. It captured the imagination of the public, retailers and media alike to the extent that we are running it again in 2006. Read more about the 2005 winners here.
The competition has a simple aim: to recognise and celebrate the UK’s small independent rural retailers who are ambassadors not just for their local produce, but also for the communities to which they are central. From September, we will be asking you to tell us who your Best Rural Retailers are and what makes them so special.
From September, there will be four categories in which to nominate (you will be able to nominate in one, two, three or all categories):
1. Best Local Food Retailer (Food)
2. Best Village Shop/ Post Office (Community)
3. Best Diversification (Entrepreneurialism)
4. Best Traditional Business (Traditional skills)
A celebration of local communities through produce.....
A Best Rural Retailer competition website is currently in production, and will go live in the summer. You will be able to nominate online from the beginning of September until the end of October. In nominating, we need you to tell us who your retail choices are (naturally), but also, and more importantly, why. The passionate citations for last year's competition saw small village shops, farm shops, Post Offices and market stalls being honoured, not just for the quality of the produce on offer, but for the retailers own personal contributions to rural life. If you know an ambassador for your community who goes the extra mile, and if your community would be a poorer place without a certain retailer, then we want to hear from you.
From regional beginnings.....
The competition will start off regionally, with a regional winner in each category being chosen by a local expert panel, headed by a Countryside Alliance Regional Director, by December 2006. The panel will visit retailers and quiz them about their produce, their role and their community.
To the national spotlight....
These regional winners will all be invited to attend a winner's reception at the House of Lords in February 2007, at which an overall national winner in each category will be named. As with the 2005 competition, local pride and competitive spirit is sure to be fierce! The winners will also be the focus of media attention - the 2005 competition did much for community-spirit, as well as for the winners' takings.......The reception is also, for many, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit the Houses of Parliament and talk to Parliamentarians about why it is vital that we keep supporting our local communities and producers.
Choosing the overall national winners will be the task of our national judging panel, headed by Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Simon Hart.
For more information, or if you would like to be sent paper nomination forms for circulation, please contact jill-grieve@countryside-alliance.org - together, we can spread the word that local is best!