Molly's Pantry is moving!

Where it started.Molly's Pantry was founded after I (Molly) took a break from work to focus on going back to university and Jo (co-founder) who worked in theatre lost his job as the pandemic took hold on 2020.                            We got down to our last £160 and with no furlough announced and no idea how we were going to support ourselves or our children. We tapped into a network of small producers that we knew and started a veg box delivery scheme.We started with 30 veg boxes, a facebook page and a spreadsheet. Driving home from the farm with no money and a car stacked with perishable goods was a moment of pure actual fear.What happened next?                                          The gamble worked and very quickly we were delivering carefully sourced, low packaging, fresh, mostly local, produce all over Milton Keynes and it's surrounding areas. By June 2020 we opened our physical store as well as having a web based ordering system to support our growing delivery service.            We started to stock more and more environmentally considerate lines as well as working with local producers and introducing the refill shop concept to compliment our huge grocery range.                                                                                                                                                            Through the lock downs we reached out to our community, feeding families who were struggling for free with generous food hampers which were paid forward by our customers.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Every year we collect christmas presents which get distributed into the community- last year we were lucky enough to have caught the attention of Santa who came with me to a local childrens centre to deliver the gifts.What this grew in to.We have never claimed zero waste, we look to operate on a low impact frame work whilst educating people about waste reduction and slower, more sustainable ways to shop. Because, this benefits everyone. The majority of our seasonal produce is locally grown and packaging free. We also have a large dry goods and liquid household refill range which encourages the reuse of existing packaging to reduce landfill waste. Colmans picked us up as part of their local hero ad campaign- which was pretty cool.Our shop has become a community hub, our customers have become friends which have become like a family. We have hosted many events including apple pressing which has been offered for free every year so far! This always brings people of all ages out to have a great time.The community that we have created is very special, we are all working towards the common goal of living better, knowing our neighbours and creating a nicer world to be in, one step at a time, in sunny Bletchley.Where are we now?Fast forward to 2023, we are a local employer with a customer base ranging from young children spending pocket money all the way through to pensioners with everyone in between. We have outgrown our shop, we have outgrown our website and we have outgrown our van! Molly's Pantry became a registered trademark in 2022. Our carbon report backed up what we are doing with numbers- our buisness uses less carbon than running two small cars for a year!We are running a small wholesale operation, multiple markets, and amongest many other things we have signed up to the SME climate commitment to be net zero by 2050.                        During the last three years we have bootstrapped with every penny going back into shop, we now need to make the next jump and we can't do this part on our own.What our customers say about us!So, whats next? Why do we need some money?Everyone has been waiting in anticipation for the new building next door to be ready. We have had a few moments where we thought it might fall through BUT we are ready now! During this wait there have many customers saying " why don't you try a crowd funder to help move it along". I felt a bit weird about the concept of a crowd funder if I am really honest but everyone has said "ask your community for help" so that is what we are doing. Asking for some help. As it stands, in the new place we are fitting out litterally everything from electrics plumbing to walls and water! It is a huge, huge job, and real talk- a crowdfunder would help make it happen faster and with less sleepless nights. We have taken a loan for the bulk of the big stuff- walls/water/sparks BUT its a big space to fill and we can't do it alone. Our Target is £3000 which will cover scalling up equiptment costs enabling us to increase our ranges, allowing for more allergy friendly products and reducing the risks of cross contamination because we will be in a much bigger space. We need to buy everything for the new space, from extra hand wash sinks, to scoop bins with quite a lot inbetween. If this goes well, we will be able to trial frozen refill ranges too, which is something lots of people have asked about!If we are lucky enough to hit are target and get to a point where we can stretch our target to £5000 we would like to install self service refill scales and another till point which will make busy days run faster. This will also make refill shopping more accessable for people. If we get to the point of "dream big" donations and smash the stretch target too, we may be able to bring our plans for take away coffee forward rather than waiting for a year to see how things settle. Thank you for reading this far!This journey has been wild, really wild. It has all become much more than we ever imagined. From the back of the car, to a fold out table in my old vets, to a buisness that (nearly) supports my family, at the heart of the community, creating a butterfly effect of goodness for the environment as we go. We are very lucky to have had such wonderful support. This move means we will be able to do everything do now but better with more stability. It has all of the potential to enable us to do everything we have talked about later on down the line- a small cafe, more events, food and environmental education outreach, workshops and more local employment... given where we started and where we have come, the sky is the limit.We aren't finished on this wild ride yet! Are you with us for the next bit?