Secret Sauce

Download a PDF copy of Secret Sauce

It is two years since The People's Supermarket, a convenience store with a difference, opened its doors on Lamb's Conduit Street, London. From a vision to do something new and make a difference, the supermarket now serves an average of 6,000 customers a week, has grown a worldwide community of over 15,000 people, trained over twenty-five people who were previously unemployed, and serves over 700 take-away meals a week.

Produced with support from Nesta, the 'Secret Sauce' booklet shares what the People's Supermarket have learned so far, and offers advice to those who, fed up with mainstream, conventional forms of grocery shopping, or who want to grow a community organisation around a retail outlet from a standing start, need to consider.  It answers questions like: 'How does The People's Supermarket operate?' 'How can you find and secure the right premises?' 'How do you finance yourself at start-up?' 'How do you attract members, stock the shop, organise an effective product offer and keep the momentum going?'


Photo of high tea to celebrate the launch of Secret Sauce. View more images from the event on our Facebook page

As the 'Secret Sauce' acknowledges, establishing TPS has been, and remains, a challenging experience, but the venture has grown a new community, created many new jobs and has achieved regular, returning trade. At start-up, the venture was simply a committed band of volunteers. The 'Secret Sauce' gives a glimpse in to the adventure of setting up such a new social venture, with the hope that others will be able to learn from it and be inspired to do something similar - not by slavishly following the TPS recipe, but by taking forward, in their own way, an experience "that seeks to transform the way in which we shop and put smiles on the faces once again of food shoppers".

Published
July 2012

Author
The People's Supermarket

*Main image courtesy of Haarala Hamilton Photography