Unicorn Grocery - fresh organic produce and wholefoods in Manchester

Twice named the nation’s ‘Best Food Retailer’ at the BBC Food & Farming Awards, we offer our Manchester customer-base an unbeatable range of affordable, fresh and wholesome food with an emphasis on organic, fair-trade and local produce. We’re the size of a supermarket but run as a workers’ co-operative, owned and democratically controlled by staff you see here in the shop.

Unicorn was established in 1996 by a small group of people committed to social change, who had a vision for the kind of place they wanted to shop in themselves. A place where a really wide range of wholesome, tasty food, sourced with care, would be sold at affordable prices. A shop owned and run by motivated worker-owners following a shared social and environmental agenda. A friendly, diverse and welcoming space that would act as a hub in the community.

Although we’ve grown a lot since then, those things remain true today. We’re proud to have proved that we can compete with national chains and provide a genuine alternative to the supermarket, and we’re now more or less the size of one.

In recent years we’ve been named 2017’s Best Food Retailer at the BBC Food & Farming Awards and the Soil Association’s 2018 Best Independent Retailer, followed in 2019 by Lancashire Life’s Independent Retailer of the Year award and Manchester Food & Drink Festival’s Food & Drink Retailer of the Year. Oh and we came top of Ethical Consumer’s national supermarket ranking. We’re not in it for the glory but we are proud to demonstrate what a worker-owned business with values can achieve….and not despite those factors, but because of them.

Co-op members still aim to run the kind of shop they love shopping in. We hope you enjoy it too.