Lake District produce delivery company A Day’s Walk to open its first retail store

Innovative online local produce home delivery company A Day’s Walk is celebrating its first anniversary by opening its first retail store.

The A Day’s Walk Lake District Food Hall will open at Holker Hall at Cark-in-Cartmel on Wednesday, June 9.

The family-run company, which is also moving its packaging and delivery operations to Holker, believes the retail outlet will complement its delivery service, which was launched in May last year and expanded in October to offer a national delivery service.

“As with the delivery service, the focus at the Lake District Food Hall at Holker Hall will be on providing food and drink from local producers, reducing food miles and maximising freshness,” said A Day’s Walk Lake District produce champion Colin Sneath.

Every item the company stocks comes from a local farmer, grower, producer or business located within a day’s walk of the heart of the Lake District, meaning the food is exceptionally fresh and genuinely local.

The new store will stock an extensive range of food and drink sourced from local producers. It will include lots of fresh produce, including artisan sourdough bread, handmade cheeses, rare breed steaks, handmade farm ice cream and venison from the Holker Estate.

The store is located in the courtyard at Holker Hall and aims to introduce an exciting new dimension to an already popular visitor venue.

“People will be able to come, visit the Hall and walk around the gardens, have a coffee and also visit an authentic Lake District Food Hall stocking genuinely local produce,” said Colin.

“The shop will feature a floor to ceiling map of Cumbria showing where everything in the shop comes from. That’s part of our commitment to traceability.

“Over the last challenging 12 months we’ve proved the concept of A Day’s Walk when it comes to our locally-sourced delivery service. We now want to take the concept into a physical retail outlet and prove it there. We are very excited about this opportunity to reach a whole new group of customers and in doing so lend further support to our 30 plus local producers keen to reach new audiences.”

He said A Day’s Walk was committed to supporting the local, rural economy, an ethos shared by the Holker Group, led by Chief Executive Allen Gibb.

A Day’s Walk supplies goods from nearly 40 local producers. New producers added recently include Wraysholme Creamery, near Flookburgh, which makes diary products from the milk of its 80-strong Holstein Friesian herd, and Woodalls of Waberthwaite, famous for its traditional Cumberland sausage created using a recipe going back generations as well as its royal warrant range of bacon.

Other suppliers include Grange Bakery, South Lakes Organic Milk, Heartwood Free Range Poultry, Mrs Prickett’s preserves, Aireys butchers, Hawkshead Relish, Lakeland Brewhouse, Ginger Bakers, Rinaldo’s Coffee, Huttons Chocolates, Lakeland Mues and Shed 1 Distillery.

A Day’s Walk Lake District Food Hall will be open Wednesdays to Sundays from 10.30am to 5pm.