Kindly opens second store on former Hisbe site
Brighton-based vegan supermarket Kindly has opened its second store, occupying the former Hisbe site in the city’s London Road neighbourhood.
After a busy first few days of business, owner Shiv Misra tells Natural Brands Magazine his intention was to keep the store’s offer and layout similar for the convenience of former Hisbe regulars in the hope of retaining their custom, with the exception of meat – Kindly being a purely plant-based retailer.
“[Customers are] finding a lot of resemblance with what Hisbe used to do. We tried to keep that familiar feeling for customers when they walk in and they see the refill options, the chilled, the frozen. This plays a big role in the customer psyche; they find it comfortable to walk about, knowing exactly where to go for bread, refills or chocolates.”
Situated on York Place, a busy street for footfall, Kindly serves the community with ethical brands covering food and drink, household, health and beauty, baby care and alcohol. With existing premises in the city’s Seven Dials area, Misra’s mission was to open up ‘sustainable shopping options’ to residents in another zone – where, since COVID, many zero-waste stores have closed. Now, with the new space offering approximately double the square footage of his first store, he can broaden Kindly’s range.
A show of solidarity
Kindly opened on 17 October with the support of Harriet’s of Hove owner Harriet Dean-Orange (left) and Hisbe co-founder Ruth Anslow (centre), both of whom attended the opening to show solidarity.
On Instagram, Dean-Orange addressed any presumed rivalry: “Why am I supporting and promoting another eco refilling supermarket?! Afterall, aren't they our competition? Well, no they aren't really! There is plenty of space for us to be honest with you. And our competition is certainly more the huge and naughty supermarkets – certainly not other independently owned, mission-based, eco businesses. Support of one another is absolutely essential, for us smallies. And a united front against the unsustainable and advantage-taking norm is what makes up friends, not competition. So big love to all the indies out there. It's a tough one, but someone's gotta fight the resistance!”
“There is a group with all the zero-waste shop owners which I’ve been part of since we kicked off,” adds Misra. “Sometimes being a business owner can be quite lonely so … we support each other. I did tell them about the news and they were all excited. It’s a small community; we help each other as much as possible. I like what Harriet said. It’s not competition. We are not here to judge our competitor.”
Help from Hisbe
Having ‘taken inspiration from Hisbe’ when he first began trading, Misra says Anslow helped him understand the best approach to running this type of retail business. When news reached him of Hisbe’s closure he reached out ‘to explore any options that were on the table’. His preference would have been to open in Q1, giving Hisbe customers continuity, but the legal process prevented this.
“Because they went into administration I had to go through the administrators to pick up the site. Someone else came in, it went to the landlord to make a decision, the landlord [went] with the other company but that fell through mid-way for reasons not known to me. That’s when the landlord reached out to see if I was still interested. It was a long drawn out process.
“People were without these options for nine months. I did bump into customers who told me that they used to travel to Seven Dials to do their shopping, so if we’d have opened up earlier we could’ve stopped that from happening. I do hope we haven’t lost those eco-conscious customers in this transition period.”
Within four to five years Misra hopes to have opened a further three stores, expanding the business to ‘as many locations as possible’. “It depends on the commercial viability of [the location], that’s a key consideration.”
By Rosie Greenaway, editor