A little bit about Essential Trading, our current supplier of the month

It’s fantastic news that Essential have been named as the supplier of the month on the Ethical Shop website and we are incredibly proud to be working with New Internationalist in its 50th year.

My name is Lee and I work in PR and Marketing at Essential Trading. I have been working at Essential for almost two years now and love working with a co-operative that has values that align very much with my own. Not only this, but my role allows me to work with a variety of brilliant people ranging from our customers, suppliers, colleagues and the people in our community. It’s a great pleasure to meet an expansive range of people that all share my love for great ethical food.

Much like the New Internationalist, we are a co-operative and our roots date back over 50 years. Essential Trading have been servicing wholesale communities and supporting the local economy since 1971 when Essential’s first Harvest store opened in Bath, England.  Following a 1991 merger of two worker co-ops, Bristol-based Nova Wholefoods Co-operative Limited and Bath Wholefood Co-operative Limited, Essential have become one of the largest worker co-operatives in the UK and a true pioneer in the manufacturing and distribution of high-quality vegetarian, vegan, organic, sustainable and free-from produce. As a unified team, all workers at Essential share a passion for hearty, healthy and ethical food.

We pride ourselves on doing things differently at Essential. When you buy from us you are supporting an alternative to the large corporations that damage our environment and show little regard for the workers that make their products. We refuse to supply supermarket chains and e-commerce conglomerates such as Amazon and, instead, work hard to champion the independent businesses that are the backbone of the economy and bring a rich fabric of culture to the communities in which they are based. We aim to do things better.