This podcast is part of a series of case studies in which we speak to small business owners. Find out about the challenges and advantages of owning your own business, and pick up some advice on how to get started. The Eco Larder is a Community Interest Company (CIC) based in the Haymarket area of Edinburgh. Opened by Matthew and Stephanie Foulds in November 2018, it's the city's first zero waste supermarket. They aim to put planet and purpose before profits. Read the full case study here - www.gov.uk/government/case-stu…/the-eco-larder-cic   Transcript   Companies House host: Hello and welcome to our latest podcast. We're here with the Eco Larder Community Interest Company in Edinburgh and welcome to Matthew and Stephanie and baby Jasmina. How are you guys?    Matthew: Very well. Thank you.   Stephanie: Yeah, really good.    CH: Thank you for welcoming us here today to talk to you about your company. So if we get straight into it, why did you start the Eco Larder and what inspired you?   M: So we started the Eco Larder well, it was an idea that had been with us while Stephanie was pregnant with Jasmina and we became increasingly aware of the additional waste we were going through preparing for a little baby and just how much it was going to take to try and live without plastic for her and we just decided at that point that we were going to make a stand, we're going to do that ourselves and then that blossomed into well, there's an opportunity to do that for Edinburgh and create a zero waste supermarket.    CH: Okay, and is it just the two of you or is it kind of you and family and volunteers?   S:  Well, we have my mum as our biggest volunteer looking after Jasmina and taking care of all the details helping in the shop and then we've also got an amazing team of volunteers.    M: Yeah, we've had lots of people just willing to offer their time doing shifts, creating websites, fixing doors and sending boxes. We will always find someone, it's just been a wonderful experience.    CH: That is so nice and I guess to already feel that you've kind of got a community of people that you know are really passionate about it and want to come and support the shop and what you're trying to achieve.    M: Yeah    CH: Amazing. In terms of kind of finding your premises and stuff. Was there a reason why you chose here? You're sort of just off the Haymarket aren’t you in Edinburgh?   M: Yes, so we're nice and central here, but we also live in this area. So we wanted to be fairly close to where we live, but also it is a great spot with what we hoped would be accessible for everyone who is coming in on the trains, but also very central in Edinburgh. Lots of people live around this neck of the woods, so we’ve looked around for a little while and checked out a couple of places and then we stumbled across where we are now.    CH: Brilliant and I know you've been open since November 2018 so you're sort of a few months in now. Where did it all start? What were the first things that you kind of did in terms of, I guess setting up the business?   S: I think we just thought let's go for it. You know and one day we sat down and launched a crowdfunding campaign. It was near the end when I was heavily pregnant. We couldn't move anyway, we were stuck in the house and Matt said I'll do the crowdfunding and I did the website and we did that and thought we've got nothing to lose and it went from there.    M: Yeah, then we got the crowdfunding. We thought ‘oh crikey’ now we've got to do it and yeah, it all just kept going one thing after another.   CH: Brilliant. So that was kind of I guess the starting point. Where did you go next?   M: Yeah, and so once we started to look at actually setting up the company we came across all the other options for how we would register and the best fit by far was the the CIC because we were taking on more than just creating a business for ourselves. It was you know, really going to be a shared effort for the Edinburgh