MY COUNTRY BUSINESS
GREENGROCER AND FLORIST SARAH COLLINS
Sarah Collins recognises how important it is for her business to be at the heart of the local community
There’s a riot of colour spilling onto the high-street pavement in the small market town of Mere in Wiltshire, announcing that Sarah Collins’s emporium, Sprout & Flower, is open for business. Containers of seasonal blooms and trailing plants jostle with baskets of fresh veg, while an arc of golden hops across the threshold tempts passers-by to come inside.
‘There is quite a lot in here – and that’s just how I like it,’ says Sarah as she deftly puts the finishing touches to an informal posy of late-summer blooms. Indeed, along with an abundance of flowers and foliage, there are fruits and vegetables piled on a big central table, and shelves and dressers groaning with everything from fresh bread and homemade cakes to free-range eggs and artisan provisions.
Sprout & Flower has a charming, oldfashioned quality that gives the impression that it’s been in this country town for generations. Yet it was only in 2011 that
Sarah and her former partner transformed a dated greengrocer’s into the characterful community hub it is today. ‘I’d never owned a shop before,’ she says. ‘But I had a clear
vision of the kind of place it should be – unpretentious, friendly, rustic and full…’
Getting to where she is now, however, has been a circuitous journey. Sarah enjoyed a rural childhood in Norfolk where, horsemad, she spent most of her time outdoors in nature. ‘I was also very creative and loved making things,’ she says, ‘so I wasn’t entirely sure whether I wanted to pursue an artistic or horsey career when I left school.’
The decision was made when, in the middle of her A-level studies, she saw an advert in Horse & Hound magazine to train as a riding instructor at a school several hundred miles away in Somerset. ‘I was a timid 17-year-old, yet I didn’t hesitate,’ she says, grinning.
She quickly fell in love with her new surroundings and, over the years, one job in an equine-orientated environment led to another. It was only when she married and had her two sons, Jobey, now 18, and Seth, 15, that another opportunity presented itself.
‘A friend gave me a beautiful posy of flowers she’d made for me, and there was something so lovely about receiving a gift created with such thought and care,’ she >
says. ‘I’d always loved flowers and thought perhaps I could do something similar.’
Sarah enrolled at Lackham College in Wiltshire to do floristry evening classes, and found she had a natural aptitude for it. She spent the next few years working for various florists, not only learning how a commercial business worked, but honing her skills and instinctively developing the natural, untamed ‘look’ that would become her signature style.
She tentatively started to think about opening a shop of her own specialising in flowers, and when an old greengrocer’s with a maisonette came up for sale in Mere, it seemed too good an opportunity to pass by. The family cottage sold quickly, then it was full steam ahead to move in above the shop and get the store ready to trade in just three weeks. ‘It was very dated, with shelves covering all the walls, and we had to gut it completely,’ says Sarah.
It made sense to keep the grocery side of the business going, along with the addition of flowers. ‘This is a small town, so being able to get decent fruit, veg and provisions is a necessity,’ says Sarah. ‘It took trial and error to find the right suppliers but it was so important to get that part right.’
Even now, however, it’s not always possible to be entirely accurate when it comes to ordering stock. ‘It can be a bit of a worry on a slow day if we have a lot of produce,’ Sarah admits. ‘But you just have to roll with it. It’s really important we have fully stocked displays of everything, so I just factor that into the overall costs. And usually, everything will sell the next day anyway!’
As the shop established itself, word spread beyond the local area (customers often take a detour off the motorway to pick up flowers), and over the years it has gently evolved with the introduction of speciality and local produce, and a tiny coffee bar which has proved hugely popular with the locals.
Undoubtedly, though, the beating heart of Sprout & Flower is the sense of community it engenders – and that, says Sarah, is the best part of the entire enterprise. ‘You become knitted into people’s lives here,’ she says. ‘Older people like coming in to buy a few items and have a chat. Local suppliers drop by with homegrown produce. And
I love seeing the regulars – like the chap who pops in at the weekend to choose a few of his wife’s favourite blooms. And, of course, flowers are bought to celebrate or commiserate life’s journeys – births, weddings and deaths – and we share in it all here.’
‘I remember the feeling I had when my friend gave me that posy all those years ago. Now I get the pleasure of seeing the joy on someone’s face when I deliver a bouquet that I’ve made for them. It’s all come full circle.’
What I love about my work...
❝ THE FREEDOM OF BEING MY OWN BOSS IS EMPOWERING! I LOVE MAKING DECISIONS FOR MYSELF AND BEING ABLE TO WORK IN THE WAY THAT I CHOOSE ❞
‘There’s something so personal about creating a special bouquet for someone’