Unicorn Grocery

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All hail the greengrocer buses tackling the UK’s food deserts Mobile food projects are making nutritious, sustainable food more accessible to food-insecure communities.

Happy Halloween! 🍁🦇🕸🎃

Veg news 30th October 🥭

This time of year we are lucky enough to see lots of fruits we generally associate with further afield coming from our European suppliers. 

We're really enjoying our Spanish mangoes this year and have been selling the Osteen variety for a fair few weeks now. 

They have a melt in the mouth feel, and this year has been exceptional for flavour. 

French growers have started on the Feijoa, a fruit with a short season you rarely see for sale with a distinct sweet flavour not dissimilar to bubblegum. If you haven't tried one of these then give them a go. 

We've also got some wonderful Spanish Passion fruit in stock. Some of these have been huge and filled with fruit. They are incredibly fragrant and delicious, some of the best we've tasted. 

Great news for Greater Manchester! 🎉♻️🎉♻️

Residents in nine Greater Manchester boroughs can now recycle a wider range of household plastics in their mixed recycling bin. Reuse is best, but once your tubs, pots have trays have been reused beyond any usefulness, you can now recycle them.

Residents in Bury, Bolton, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford are now part of this expanded recycling effort.

🌱 Head over to the website to find out more!

♻️

Garlic and onion sets have finally arrived! 🧄🧅🎉
Take advantage of these lovely autumn weather and get planting for next summer’s harvest.

IT'S PUMPKIN TIME!

& remember there are loads more seasonal recipes on our website!

Pumpkin Cornbread - Unicorn Grocery Adapted from Post Punk Kitchen. Use any pumpkin or squash that you fancy! Eat as a dessert, teatime treat, or with a pat of marg alongside spicy bean chilli. SHARE ON TwitterFacebook

It's BRASSICA SEASON! & we've got some gorgeous CAVOLO NERO & KALE right now.

fill yer boots, & try this kids' favourite CAVOLO CHIPS! 🥬

Come and celebrate apple day with us this Saturday the 19th October! 🍎 🍏 🍎 🍏

Veg news 16th October.

Brassicas stay centre stage this week, but this time it’s kale.

We’ve got a great supply courtesy of Strawberry Fields and Lyncroft Farm at the minute, with Strawberry Fields’s winter wonderland variety the choice favourite here at Unicorn thanks to its striking display of purple, green and white leaves. Spring greens are also looking good– again from Strawberry and Lyncroft– as is Organic Pantry’s purple sprouting broccoli. We’re simply spoilt for choice! That said, this does mean we’ll be starting to see the tail end of much of our UK summer veg offer as we move onto Euro for the winter season: that’s courgettes, peppers, cucumbers, and aubergines to name a few. These Lancashire crops from the tunnels of Libby Flintoff and Lyncroft Farm have been seeing us through the summer but now’s the time to be going to Europe for the bulk of our supply.

On the fruit side, we’ve got some generously sized chirimoyas to take us through to the weekend, and French figs are looking really fabulous too!

Our latest supermarket price checks 🍐🍎🍏

It's back! If you've been to our annual winter wine tasting before, you will need no convincing. If you haven't, you will love it, and you should! £5 for generous tastings and a fascinating tour through some highlights of our organic range, with the exceptionally knowledgeable Jem from . Ticket link in bio or buy in the shop.

Spring (well autumn) cleaning? Got any kitchen kit just hanging around that could be donated to a good cause? Our Kitchen Kit Call Out is underway and these are the public venues where you can hand over your donations until 21 October. We'll take anything that is working and in usable condition (except glass and knives). We've redistributed 8.1 tonnes of kit so far to community organisations across Greater Manchester. Massive thanks to Age UK Tameside, St Matthew's Hall Stretford, Positive Steps, Stanley Square Sale, Northmoor Community Association and Unicorn Grocery.

To find out more about Kitchen Kit Call Out see https://bit.ly/3w9Rlnx

🌱 Bean Dip With Radicchio 🌱

Fresh from Wednesday's veg news, radicchio is one of the stars of the season, so we’re sharing this delicious bean dip recipe with radicchio and fried bread, adapted from from Perfect for a cosy autumn evening in! 🍂

💡 Tip: If you don't have a food mill, you can pick up an one in the shop. Alternatively, you can press through a sieve or blend it if you have a high-powered blender, but it might not be quite the same smooth consistency.

You'll Need: A food mill (or sieve/blender)

Ingredients:

1 medium potato

1 celery stick

1 carrot

1 onion

1 bay leaf

400g tin borlotti beans

6 tbsp olive oil (plus more for frying bread)

1 large head radicchio

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

8 slices bread

1 lemon & 2 tsp lemon juice

Salt and pepper

Steps:

1️⃣ Peel and quarter the veg, then cover with boiling water. Add salt and a bay leaf. Boil, cover, and simmer for 12-15 minutes until soft.

2️⃣ Lift the veg from the cooking liquid (keep the liquid!) and pass through a food mill with the beans (or sieve/blend). Add a little cooking liquid to loosen, aiming for a soft but not runny consistency. Add garlic, salt, and pepper to taste.

3️⃣ Cut the radicchio into thick ribbons. Blend olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice for a smooth dressing. Toss with the leaves.

4️⃣ Fry bread in batches until golden on both sides.

5️⃣ Arrange the bean purée, radicchio, fried bread, and lemon wedges on a plate. Enjoy while the bread is hot!

Tag us if you try it! 🌿🍋

Image 📸 from from

Veg News 9th October.

January King cabbages from New Fields are one of our latest arrivals, their violet-tinged leaves making a most welcome addition to our autumnal veg display. With a natural sweetness similar to the savoy but with a satisfyingly crisp bite, January kings shine with minimal effort. We like them oven roasted in generously sized wedges, a drizzle of olive oil and a dash of sea salt.

Equally vibrant and but rather more punchy in flavour, Kindling Market Garden’s whole radicchio heads are also here. Already featuring in Kindling’s salad mix, radicchio can be lightly sautéed if you’d prefer to dampen its bitter notes.

Finally it’s Libby Flintoff’s Lancashire grown watercress. Another leaf with a powerful flavour, add to any salad dish for a hit of peppery goodness!

💚 New Member Workwear! 💚

We LOVE our colourful new work jackets and vests, mindfully designed and manufactured by Manchester-based clothing brand .co and customised and printed by the talented folks over at on Tib St. 🪡🧵

🌱✊

“This policy idea gives farmers hope”: JO POULTON & A BASIC INCOME FOR FARMERS - Landworkers Alliance We are a union of farmers, growers, foresters and land-based workers with a mission to improve the livelihoods of our members and create a better food and land-use system for everyone.

We’re excited to welcome Zemanka to our Good Stuff range, where you’ll spot some of our favourite products and suppliers. These indicate businesses that we are particularly proud to be involved with, operating and trading in ways we'd like to see become much more widespread. Look for the pink apple around the shop! 🍎

Zemanka is a Czech bakery producing biscuits and crackers with a passion for bringing delicious, wholesome, well-sourced food to everyone, including people with plant-based diets or allergies. They are committed to circular economics – not just via organic ingredients, thoughtful packaging and renewable energy sources – but also using resources such as fruit pulp, spent brewers’ grains and coffee grounds. 🌱♻️

Veg News 2nd October 🎃

At a time when UK lettuces are becoming more limited, the autumn salad mix is looking particularly vibrant. It includes three different endives: the broad-leaved fleshy Nuance with its mild flavour jostles for space with the more bitter fine and frizzy leaves of Pancalieri & Korbi. A mix of late season lettuce varieties helps balance out the beautiful mustard flavours provided by the deep purple Red Dragon and green Mizuna. While a smattering of autumn rocket delivers a serious peppery punch! Star of the mix though is undoubtedly the arrival of radicchio… the Treviso variety is a striking blend of vivid red and white mellow nutty leaves.

Come mid October, late season lettuces will gradually be replaced by succulent winter purslane’s mild tasting heart shaped leaves. Watch this space!

With all these strong - and sometimes bitter, flavours knocking around, we’d recommend a sweet dressing. Perhaps a balsamic glaze? Come December, blood oranges would work well, but in the meantime, we’re really loving pomegranate molasses!

Salad leaves are always available to buy loose, so you can take just what you need, and it couldn’t get much more local. Lovely grown by Kindling Market Garden, located in Woodbank Park, Stockport and delivered fresh, three times per week.

A lovely autumn roundup from the fab folks at Better Food Traders 🍂

We are obsessed with these upcycled shopping bags from the lovely folks 😍😍😍

They are a fellow Machester-based workers co-op, committed to inspiring action on sustainable fashion.

These bags are made from our old awnings (see last pic 👀), so each one is one of a kind, with only a limited number available.

Keep an eye out on insta and their website for info on their sewing, mending and upcycling workshops around Greater Manchester, or sign up to their newsletter on their website to stay informed on upcoming events 🛍

📝 Tell us what you really think! 😓😐😁😚

Fill out our customer survey for a chance to win a luxury hamper full of delicious treats! We really appreciate all of your brilliant and helpful feedback, and thank you to everyone who's already shared their thoughts.

📅 Deadline: This Tuesday 1st October, by end of business

You can fill in a paper copy while you are in the shop or grab one tucked inside our latest customer newsletter, hot off the press.

🔗 Prefer online? The survey link is here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSceFXjJv9UbwL4K-i1o315K4B0Ed9paGE2m0ncOg7-iH_ifdw/viewform?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaY0X-akbtM370d5R_QtqQOO6guNVqFOBOmFW6TS72QTDxMfxCNbTH9EZOw_aem_sjvJ-6dSxQyXRvNrcDB71Q

Veg news 25th September 🍐🍎🍏

The UK fruit harvest is in full swing, and last week some of the veg team took some time out to visit some of the orchards that supply us with apples and pears for the season. Over two days, Lee, Marie and Stuart met with our long-standing suppliers in Oxfordshire, Kent, and Suffolk.

First stop was Jenny and the team at in Banbury. Alongside their delicious apples and pears, their sweet plum varieties are already ripe and available in the shop. 

Windmill is also our exclusive UK quince supplier, and we’ll be stocking these fragrant, floral fruits as soon as they're ready. We also got a sneak peek of their green-skinned fresh walnuts, which were not quite ready to be shaken off the tree yet, but look out for those this autumn. It was great to meet their close-knit community of workers, living on site and eating together in the late-summer sunshine.

Next, the team headed to Kent to visit James at Mole End Farm on a busy picking day for their Blaze apples. Seeing the care and dedication of the team made us appreciate the quality of the fruit grown in the "Garden of England" even more. Although organic apple trees usually provide lower yields than conventional growing, they work in harmony with nature, meaning less energy-intensive growing and a lower impact on the environment. We're excited to hear their progress on working towards integrating employee ownership into the structure too.

On the way back, they stopped in Suffolk to catch up with Gavin and Margret Cherry at Sweet Apple Orchards. They had many a story to share from their decades of experience growing apples, pears and plums near Ipswich. Their passion for great tasting fruit grown with biodynamic principles was as strong as it's ever been.

As we approach Apple Day, a highlight of our calendar, look out for even more varieties being added to our range. This week, the much-loved Russet has made its debut - known for its sweet, nutty flavor with a hint of pear, it has many fans amongst staff and customers!

🥖 Leeds bread co-op is hiring! 🥖

They are currently looking for people to join their Deliveries Team. They have three part-time and casual roles for Driving and Packing support.

🔗 Link for more details in our bio

The closing date is Monday 30th September 9.00am.

-operative

SURVEY TIME! As a workers' co-op we get direct customer feedback every day, as we all work on the shop floor as well as steering things behind the scenes. But every couple of years we ask for your thoughts in a more structured way. There's a link to the survey in our bio, or pick up a paper copy in the shop. Deadline is a week today (1st Oct). Thanks!

It's all happening! Come and join us to celebrate our 28th birthday x