A COMMUNITY greengrocers is reaching new heights after being featured in a popular culinary magazine.

A Small Good Thing was started by friends Lisa Forrest and Emily Cooke in November 2017, becoming the first plastic-free shop in the borough.

The duo's business on Church Road, Smithills, has been featured in this month's edition of the BBC Good Food magazine, and they've already had new customers through the door following the publicity.

Co-founder Lisa said: "Being in the magazine has just been really nice, we've been revisiting all of the wonderful memories from being a finalist in the BBC Food & Farming Awards.

"It's such a small business so the publicity is really great – social media is really useful but you're kind of talking in a bubble and fighting against an algorithm so it's hard to reach new people.

"We've already had quite a few people who've come in because they saw us in the magazine."

The shop was named as a finalist in the Best Shop or Market category of the BBC Food & Farming Awards last year – beating off 300 nominees for a spot in the top three.

Lisa and Emily had no previous retail experience, with the pair working as a community development officer for Bolton at Home, and an education officer for a museum respectively.

They've learnt a lot about the industry in the last two years, and are keen to share their knowledge with customers.

Lisa added some advice to people looking to head to the shop: "Just come and have a chat, we're dead dead friendly and it's not as scary as people think it is – we've had a few people who say that they were worried about doing something wrong but it's not like that.

"If you want to bring your own containers that's great – we often say we don't care if you bring an old welly as long as we can weigh it it's fine.

"It's nothing new, it's how your grandparents used to do their shopping, it's just returning to an older way of doing things."