The new supermarket concept took 2 years to materialise, and opened in Brighton on Dec. 7th last year. HiSbe, or’ How it Should be’ means a place where people can buy quality food at low prices, where food is not wasted, staff are paid fairly, and customers are not treated like sheep to be fleeced at the tills.
Text and Photos by:
Graham Douglas
Supermarkets offer the chance to buy all our food in one place, and their bulk-buying allows them to undercut small shops. The result has been to starve the small business into submission, except where it can find a niche of demand to trade in.
This might be the convenience of being open late away from the town centre, or a niche of specialist demand created by wealthy middle class consumers wanting ‘old-fashioned service’, or exotic or healthy foods.
What isn’t generally available is quality food at affordable prices, this is the HiSbe concept.
Amy Anslow, one of the three founders has worked for the Fire Service, as a Tour Leader, and as Youth and Communications Officer for the environmental charity MSSTT. She showed The Prisma round their pilot store and discussed the policy decisions they have made, which are a blueprint for others who want to break the power of the big supermarkets.
Whole food shops seem expensive, how do you position yourself in relation to them?
We’re not vegetarian; we are looking to take business away from supermarkets, not from independents. We expect that people who are concerned about the ethics of food production and sale will be drawn to us anyway, and we want everyday people to shop less exclusively at supermarkets.
How is it possible to compete with big supermarkets?
Our price comparisons are on Twitter and Facebook. We sell a local Sussex pepper for 35-40pence, while Coop and Sainsbury will sell an imported pepper of similar size for 80-90pence. We are extremely competitive on all our fruit and vegetables, because we source directly. We also sell a lot of dry goods loose, pasta, rice, nuts, cereals, and they are all organic and very low priced.
We’ve found ways to keep prices down, by not adding huge profit margins. So we put on the margin that is sustainable for us, and pass on the benefits of our sourcing to the shoppers.
Is it possible to be exclusively organic?
We prioritise local food; nearly all the farms we buy from operate to an organic standard, but can’t always afford to be certified Organic.
All our meat and dairy comes from within 26 miles and the fruit and vegetables are as local as possible through seasonal stocking, although lemons and bananas will always be imported.
Support Ethical is one of our 8 guiding principles, coffee and sugar are British or Fair Trade. All our bananas are organic and Fair Trade, from the Dominican Republic.
No waste or low waste?
We are very close to no waste; we prefer to give stuff away, to our staff or if we have a couple of pints of milk unsold it goes outside the shop with a smiley face label saying “help yourself”.
Why do supermarkets waste so much?
They massively over-order, and only care about waste from the point of view of cost, despite PR noises. It’s easier as a smaller shop not to over-order, but sometimes we don’t have everything people want every day. Customers understand that and see that it is part of not wasting food.
Is it possible to pay staff fairly?
We pay £7.65 an hour, which is above the Brighton and Hove Living Wage. It gives us the opportunity to be picky about staff, to have people who are friendly and customer-focused. Shopping can be a very different experience.
The decor and the lighting feels clean and pleasant. And no piped music or constant announcements: was that a policy decision?
Every aspect of design was very carefully considered. We didn’t want typical supermarket lighting, we got these LED panels which look like skylights. People comment all the time about how much nicer it feels.
We also decided on low level shelving, so people can see across the store, which makes it much less hemmed-in compared to supermarkets, where you get herded up and down the gangways.
How do you inform the public about the issues?
We try to help people understand the impact of their buying decisions without being preachy or overwhelming people with all the issues of the food industry. We just want people to see that we sell a lot of good stuff in one place – which isn’t the case in most supermarkets.
How do you reach new customers?
We’ve been prolific on social media for 2.5 yrs, building the concept and creating a following, and it was that crowd of people who funded the store, we raised £200,000 to get the store open. As a social enterprise, we can’t spend a lot on advertising. We’re getting 2,000 people in the store every week now, and we are going to do some local advertising with the Big Lemon bus company, which is another social enterprise we admire.
Do you campaign?
The shop is the campaign: whenever you spend a pound you are voting for something – good or bad – so going to an ethical supermarket is an easy way to get involved.
We’ve been involved with Compassion in World Farming for a long while, but there are so many good campaigns out there, we are happy to point people towards them.
Humane killing of animals is in the news again, what checks do you have?
We firmly believe that it will be meat eaters that change the meat industry by buying better meat, and we give them access to that, rather than skirting the issue by not selling meat. We have a very close relationship with farmers, we know the abattoirs they use, and we have a detailed checklist of standards that we require before buying from them. All our meat is free range from small family farms.
You started with the help of sponsors?
We knew most banks wouldn’t be interested, but we work with Triodos, the ethical bank. It was more important for us to create a democratic funding model. Anyone could contribute, as little as £10, and we gave them a £12 voucher in return. We raised £30,000 which made it the most successful Buzzbnk crowd funding campaign ever, and that created a lot of interest locally with people ready to spend their vouchers when we opened. We were able to leverage that up using private shareholder investments locally.
Who owns you now?
We are incorporated as a Community Interest Company or CIC, so there is a cap on dividends and on directors’ salaries. Three of us are the major shareholders who control it, and our intention as we open new stores is to devolve ownership to the communities and the staff that work there, by creating an Employee Trust.
The future?
We hit break-even on week 5, now at week 12 we’re tracking 10% above all our targets. So after the next quarter we will be able to consider another store, which will be in Hove, so as to be able to keep the same supply chain.
The coffee bar also helps to keep our shop prices low. We have a great partnership with Cafe Direct, the ethical coffee company.
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