Swindon Pulse Wholefoods | Support Our Independents

14/12/2022

By Lee Nottle

At the beginning of December 2022, we visited fellow workers' co-operative Swindon Pulse Wholefoods. Located in the middle of Curtis Street, just outside of the Swindon city centre, Swindon Pulse Wholefoods is a shop and co-operative that boasts a rich history. Founded in the late 70's, Swindon Pulse started out in the back of a Morris-Minor van in what was the old market in Swindon. Now, over 40 years on, Swindon Pulse Wholefoods is one of the oldest continually operating wholefood cooperative shops in the UK. 

In our fourth episode of #SupportOurIndependents, Lee from Essential spoke with Cath and Tracey at Swindon Pulse about the history of the co-operative, how they have had to adapt as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic, and what lies ahead for the shop.

Can you tell us about the history of Swindon Pulse Wholefoods?

Cath:  Swindon Pulse started in 1976 and the founder members, of which there were about 13, chose the name. This was before our time. Originally it started off in the back of a van. They then had a market stall, and then a shop just further up the street from where we are now.  This was knocked down and the shop moved to where we are now in the 80’s. This was all before I was actually a member. It was started by a community at Lower Shaw Farm. Pulse and Lower Shaw Farm used to be linked. Not now, but Lower Shaw Farm is still going as well. So yeah, that’s how we started out.

How long have you been working at Swindon Pulse?

Cath:  Twenty years, I think as a member and probably a bit longer as a casual worker. Tracey is our longest serving member of the co-operative…

And how long has Tracey been at Swindon Pulse?

Tracey:  I’ve been here for 30 years now!

Cath: Is it really 30 years now?

Tracey: I started here when I was 19 and I’m 49 now.

Cath: Were you a member then?

Tracey: Yeah, I was a member within 3 months of starting.  

What can you tell us about your customers?

Cath: We’ve got quite a big range! We have a lot of older customers that have been shopping with us for years. Now that times have changed, we’ve got a lot of people from different parts of the world because this area has a lot of folk from all around the world. A lot of younger people come in as well, so, yeah, it’s a real mix of people, which is good.

How has business changed for you since the pandemic? How did it impact you and what has changed for Swindon Pulse since then?

Cath: When the pandemic started and the lockdown happened, we had to work behind closed doors. We started doing home deliveries or people could collect at the door. We literally had to invent a way we were going to do deliveries overnight. Which we did. Evan was brilliant with that. We did it and we did really well – we were really busy! Then everything opened up again and since then things have started to get quieter, unfortunately.  From that respect, it has been strange. Everyone that we have spoken to is in the same boat, though.

What does it mean to be an independent business in Swindon?

Cath: Well, there’s not many independent businesses in Swindon… a few, but not a lot. So, it does make you different because most of the shops in town are chain stores. People come in and they love it because we’re an independent store. We still get people coming in and they’ve been living in the area for 30 years and they didn’t know we were here. So yeah, it’s great because we are our own bosses and we haven’t got someone, you know some manager somewhere, saying you should be doing this and this because we’re the people that make those decisions. So yeah, it’s really great!

In terms of co-operatives, how many others are there in the area?

Cath: I don’t know any others, really, in Swindon to be honest with you. Swindon Care is a co-operative and they do childcare but that’s all I can really think of.

Well, that means that you have a pretty unique identity in Swindon. Following on from that, what do you think the future has in store for Swindon Pulse?

Cath: Well, keeping going is our main priority at the moment, but, to look on the bright side of it, we’re doing different things like having late openings and events. We were thinking about it and we have been through quiet times like this before so we’re basically just keeping going steadily, battling down the hatches, cutting down as much as we can while keeping necessary things in the shop, and just carrying on the best we can.

Tracey: That’s all we can do at the moment, really…

Cath: But the way things are at the minute, we don’t know what to expect. Does anybody really know at the minute?

Tracey: We saw the piece you did on Artichoke Wholefoods, and that they recently set-up a crowdfunding page and that is something that we will maybe look into. I love what they said and quite a lot of it was relevant to us.

That was a great episode... Penny and Jonny at Artichoke are both really lovely and have some brilliant ideas. I think during the pandemic people really had to think outside the box and be as creative as possible. I think that's exactly what you are doing with the in-store events... 

Cath: Well, actually, now that you say it, it really puts things into perspective. As I was saying about the delivery/collection service, we had to come up with that literally overnight. If we think about that, we can definitely do it again…

Tracey: It’s just about adapting, isn’t it?

Cath: We’re doing our late-night openings and events and I’m sure there will be many other things we can do.

Tell us more about the events you have coming up...

Cath: We’re planning on doing one a month and maybe having a theme for each one…

Tracey: A theme like helping with sleep, for example.

Cath: Yeah, we deal with A. Vogel and they do a lot of stuff, so we were thinking of trying to get people like the A. Vogel to perhaps do a talk and do different things like that…

Tracey: …and I’ve got another group coming in called Stitch Social and we’re going to try and maybe do creative craft nights. So, they’ll come in, do some crafts, and maybe shop while they’re here. We’re just going to try and make use of the shop outside of opening hours and make it more of a community space. There’s a lot of people that can’t come in because they work full-time and their weekends get taken up. We only open from 9:00am until 4:30pm now so we thought if we could open up some evenings people can have their tea and then come in afterwards…

Cath: …and we quite often go out and do events.

Tracey: That’s only just really picked up again.

Cath: We’ve done things like environmental events and vegan events, so we go out and do things like that as they crop up throughout the year. It’s something that we look for now to go and do…

Tracey: It’s good to keep up the networking side rather than bedding down in our little shop.

 

If you are interested in participating in an upcoming Support Our Independents feature, we would love to hear from you! We want to represent as many businesses as possible and highlight how diverse independent businesses are. Simply email marketing@essential-trading.coop with Support Our Independents in the subject line and we will get back to you as soon as we can. 

Our next feature will be on Christine's Sustainable Supermarket, a health food store in Bradford on Avon that stocks a range of organic, fairtrade, ethical, and locally sourced products.