Murtle Market, a social enterprise supporting young adults with complex additional support needs and learning disabilities, has launched a home-delivery service after the success of its refillery store, takeaway café, and heritage hub near Bieldside in Aberdeen.
The shop, which is part of local charity Camphill School Aberdeen, first opened its doors in 2024 to create more opportunities for students to develop work and life skills while also strengthening links with the local community.
Since opening, the store on North Deeside Road has been a hit with locals. Now, the charity is looking to bring its popular products to more people in Aberdeen with the launch of a home delivery service.
Murtle Market offers a range of sustainable, locally grown fruit and vegetables, sandwiches, meats, refillable items ranging from dried goods to laundry products, and unique crafts that are made by the students, as well as a choice of takeaway refreshments including hot drinks, homemade soups and cakes. A selection of these can now be ordered online.
It’s hoped the new service, which will cater for people within a five-mile radius of Murtle Market, will create more opportunities for both its students and the local food producers the charity partners with.
While much of the fruit and vegetables sold by the market are grown in Camphill School Aberdeen’s gardens, where the students tend to them, pick and distribute them, Murtle Market also works closely with local growers and food and drink businesses to ensure shoppers have access to a range of products.
Nico Nino Ramierez, Head of Estates and Development at Camphill School Aberdeen, said: “We’ve been blown away by the support that we’ve received from the local community since we opened our doors. We opened Murtle Market as a way of creating new opportunities for the young people while also being a focal point to forge stronger links with the wider community. The launch of our home delivery service is an exciting next step, which we hope people will also throw their support behind.
“Enabling people to thrive while protecting the environment is at the heart of what Murtle Market is all about. Whether that’s by creating opportunities for the young adults or by working with our extended community partners to enable our customers to access quality food and other products that are affordable while also sustainable.
“We’ve all seen the news about rising costs and the predicted impact of a super El Niño on global food production. The most effective way to protect people against that is through supporting local producers. If we’re going to be a viable alternative to the convenience of popping into a supermarket, we need to make it as easy as possible for people to buy from us, and that’s where the home delivery service comes in.”
Among the food and drink businesses that partner with Murtle Market are Berwick Wood Produce – a small holding that provides seasonal fruit and vegetables, and Fieldfare Community Supported Agriculture – an Aberdeenshire-based grower of seasonal, organic and biodynamic produce.
Rose Bramwell at Fieldfare CSA said: “Collaborating with Murtle Market is enabling us to supply our local community with seasonal, freshly harvested produce - the starting point of creating a local, resilient food chain.”
Mhairi Player at Berwick Wood Produce said: “We have really enjoyed being part of a collaborative of local growers supplying Murtle Market. The whole system of communication, order and delivery between ourselves and Murtle Market has been very straightforward, ensuring we can harvest everything fresh for delivery. We are looking forward to building on this relationship to provide greater food access and food resilience to the area around Murtle Market.”
Home deliveries are made on select weekdays. To place an order visit: https://murtle-market-online.myshopify.com/collections/all