Fruit & Veg does not come better than this! FRESH everyday…read morefrom the market and not pre packed, you can choose your own from the huge selection Matthew provides daily with a smile. I have never tasted apples like the ones this local independent and trust worthy shop has to offer, and there is always locally grown seasonal produce. Matthew always makes the effort to find fresh produce that has been grown within 50 miles of his shop and labels them for all his customers to see. An added bonus is if there is something particular you are after, all you have to do is ask and the next day you have the best quality of it! There is a free delivery service if you cant carry your 10lb of spuds and carrots etc home with you or if you cant get to the shop at all which is fab for the older generation. Also THE BEST place for Christmas trees! Always service with a smile :)

I Love Grapevine. The fruit and vegetables are always so fresh and delicious. It's really quite a…read morelarge shop and sells more than the average fruit shop; there's a small range of cooking extras: sauces, oils and dressings, herbs, and fresh eggs, and a fantastic indoor and outdoor plant section, with cut flowers and bedding plants all available. There's always great offers on the fruit, Tuesday I bought a big strawberries for £1 and they were just divine! Great place, but it's a long way to walk back to the train station (or the car park) with heavy purchases.. I don't think home delivery is available.

Not only is this a good fruit and veg shop, but they have a good range of flowers and bedding…read moreplants in season. If you need to pick up a loaf, milk, or eggs whilst you are here you can. The staff are very helpful, and efficient. Your produce can be delivered for a small charge. I always get my Christmas tree here, and they deliver that. If you want to give a fruit basket, this is where you should get it in Ulverston, the baskets themselves are nice.

One of the last corner fruit & veg shops left. Very wide selection of fresh, good looking produce,…read moreand an even wider selection of cereals, grains, sauces, dairy, teas and even an ecover refill station. Staffed by friendly & helpful folk, open 8 'till 8 (6 on Saturday, not open Sunday). Only drawback is that it's not the cheapest (and can sell out of date stuff so check the labels) but much better quality than your average supermarket. A brilliant place and jam packed with customers most of the time, always a good sign : )

Amazed by this place…read more I haven't seen anywhere like it since my travels to Portland. It has a real community atmosphere. Everyone involved, from the growers to the staff to the people shopping, care and it really shows. It's honest. It's exactly where you want to buy your vegetables. There's soil on the fresh produce. Actual soil. No cellophane, no unnecessary packaging, no nonsense - just tasty, local food. The shelves are clearly labelled and well stocked with interesting offerings. They have your staples - potatoes, all the usual veg, cereals, spices, fruits as well as some more unusual choices when/if it's in season. Prices are reasonable and when you pay you feel like you're contributing - something you never experience in a chain supermarket. There's a play area for kids and free apples to keep them occupied - with a little compost bin for the cores. A big green thumbs up.

Unicorn is quite simply the best place ever and the eco-jewel in the crown of the noble and good…read morekingdom of Chorlton, that land of the yoga bunny, the eco-warrior and community campaign group Keep Chorlton Interesting http://keepchorltoninteresting.org/ Walking around the unusually-wide aisles of this wholefoods supermarket, it is easy to feel inspired that the times are *not* a' changing. Because they've changed. And here we find ourselves in a land flowing with everlasting organic milk and honey, and we no longer have to constantly check the label because it's all good stuff! Unicorn is a fully-fledged supermarket with the small and large trolleys to prove it, but the relaxed atmosphere and experience of the five senses being bathed in everything that is good is tangible. Starting outside the door, the Big Issue vendor deftly helped me free a trolley that was jammed, and I could feel his genuine wish to help and for my Unicorn shopping experience to be a good one. Inside. Organic seeds. Garden tools made in Wigan by a company called Bulldog. (I bought a hand fork and a 3-pronged hand cultivator, which I think will prove useful for weeding close to plants without damaging their roots.) Organic fruit and veg which is all labelled and sourced as locally as possible (e.g. Broad Beans from Gielty of Ormskirk). And plenty of choice of fruit and veg - how come supermarkets never manage to have more than a few lines of organic produce? A lovely blackboard telling what's in season and how things have been going for the farmers out in the field. Sometimes, I've seen another small blackboard outside showing how Unicorn is cheaper than Sainsbury or Tesco for the same items. This doesn't surprise me, as a good co-op is a very strong business model, without the big salaries and pressure for huge shareholder dividends of all chain supermarkets. I've not tried much from the chilled display, so I'll leave that to others to review. The dried goods are handily displayed on tiered shelves with small, medium and large sizes of each item. In the back corner, there is a lovely little play area, including a compost bin for the little eco-warriors to put their apple cores in! Every time I've visited, the play area has been very much in use, with lots of fun being had. The kids are nice to each other! The bakery and hot food takeaway is all good stuff from the best organic bakeries in the area, supplemented by some goodies baked instore. I've had great soups from here, eaten with a buttered roll or pastie, very wholesome-tasting - sweet potato or roasted red pepper, mmm! On the shelves in the middle are a many speciality ingredients which are hard to find elsewhere. From my till receipt, for example - Toasted Sesame Oil (organic), Pomegranate Syrup, Puffed Wheat (organic), Puffed Millet (organic), Polenta (organic). Even if you're not an enthusiastic cook, I would personally much rather have a breakfast cereal of Puffed Wheat with a dash of maple syrup and whatever else I fancy rather than trust the Honey Monster! Waiting at the checkout, the lady in front offered me half a organic loaf in a brown paper bag - thank you very much, madam! I always find the checkout staff and all the others very pleasant and on-the-ball - there is a maturity about this place. Unicorn is not a side-show in Chorlton it's the dominant retail model (shh - you know what I mean!) with a turnover of millions of pounds. One last thing - at the checkout, those branded plastic things that supermarkets provide to separate your shopping on the belt from the customers in front and behind are replaced by...pieces of wood! Pass on the well-worn, wooden baton and the good word about Unicorn. :-)

Neil's is the largest of the greengrocers in the market, with an outurned corner stall. As a big…read morefan of greengrocers as a means of stocking up on fruit and veg for the week, I was most impressed with Neil's. Of all the greengrocers I have seen, I have never once comented on a beautiful display. Normally, it comes part and parcel of having a fruit and veg shop, and the produce is just stacked up, without having had much thought put into it. Neil's however is the exception. With carrots fanned out and everything looking perfect in its place, thought has evidentally gone int every inch of the stall, and quite frankly it is the most tempting fruit and veg stall I have ever seen! Fantastic. Prices are competitive, but not a patch on what you'd pay elsewhere.

William Ellis the greengrocers are opposite Gregg's the Bakers on Market Lane. William Ellis is a…read morefamily based company established on Market Lane since the early 1980's. The greengrocers offer a wide range of fruits and vegetables, fresh flowers and bulbs. The store is a busy one that competes well against Tesco, Morrison's and now Sainsbury's and is popular with the locals. As local's ourselves we try to shop outside the supermarkets as much as possible and now and with the credit crunch it's really worth comparing the prices. William Ellis are always a few pennies cheaper per item than the supermarkets but when you are buying the weekly fruit and vegetables is really adds up.

The most friendly guys on Clitheroe market. Great produce, if I still lived in Clitheroe I'd be…read moredown to the stall every week! Keep it up guys.

A good shop for fruit and vegetables.read more

Manchester is one of the best market towns in the country. If it isn't the weekly farmer's markets…read moreor the Sunday carboot and flea markets, it's the specialist markets that take place around the calendar. Apart from the now very famous Christmas market, my next favourite annual event has to be the Fine Food Market, usually held between September and October every year in St Ann's Square. This is one event that no epicurean in their right mind would miss. Bringing together some of the biggest talents and producers in the North, expect to be fed by the best restaurants in town and offered some of the best home grown produce in the country. According to the government website, 'speciality meats, smoked foods (fish, cheese, meats and poultry) cheeses, chutneys, pickles, black puddings, ice cream, specialist ales and sloe gin' are just a very few items on sale here.

If you're a fan of hog roasts, paella, wood-fired pizza and vintage-style tea shops, head to the…read moreManchester Markets on St Anne's Square before it disappears again. A mooch around the market is the perfect way to liven up an otherwise dull day at the office (or living room, if you work from home, like me), so as soon as the clock strikes 1pm, get yourself there. You're going to spend, on average, about a fiver for takeaway food from one of the stalls but portions are good - especially at the Hog Roast stall, where they'll ram your baguette so full of pork and apple sauce you won't know where to start. As well as food, you'll find a number of stalls selling art and hand-crafted decor for the home, plus vintage furniture and clothing in the market's main indoor area; The Orangery, where you can also see/hear live music at certain times throughout the day (check the signage outside for more details). I'm really impressed with this little market. It's brought a much-needed injection of 'quaint' to the city centre. I wish it was here all the time!