The Community Buy-Out
In 2019, over three years’ work culminated in our successful community purchase of Dunbar’s Crunchy Carrot, saving it from closure. We raised over £180,000 through a grant from the Scottish Land Fund and a community share offer, and the hand-over of the shop to the community took place in November.
More than 500 members of Dunbar’s community bought out the Crunchy Carrot to save it from closure. In just over a month’s time, our community share offer raised over £62,000, sailing past our £50k target. The support for this ambitious venture exceeded all our hopes: thank you every single person who has invested in the new Community Carrot. This investment joined a substantial grant from the Scottish Land Fund of over £119,000, which made possible the purchase of the building and assets, and funded our Development Officer. The shop opened on the 5th November in its new format: though officially the Community Carrot, it continues to trade as the Crunchy Carrot (everyone loves the name).
The Board of Directors received valuable support in the successful buy-out from Community Shares Scotland, Co-operative Development Scotland, and the Plunkett Foundation.
The funds that were raised enabled us to buy the building, the business and stock, pay for refurbishments and updating of the shop systems, and provide some working capital.
We secured a grant from The Scottish Land Fund to meet most of the cost of buying the building, and ran an overwhelmingly supported community share offer that raised £62,000 - smashing our target of £50,000.
You can still invest in shares: any investment supports our work and enables us to reach out further into the community, do more great work surrounding community food and drink, and invest more into creating a secure and sustainable business.