Day Zero Autumn 2025 Newsletter

Dear friends, 

We’re bringing you another update from the Day Zero team as it’s been a good few months since our last one.

The messages we want to share this time around are that while we are doing alright, we really need to bring more customers through the door of our shop on a regular basis; trading conditions are difficult. Since we opened our doors almost 7 years ago, the number of people refilling has actually decreased considerably. We have of course shifted our business to adapt and you’ll probably be aware of our moves into selling organic wine (and beer!), and our fresh produce and veg boxes. 

Personally, I (Mark) am finding the current situation really stressful, but I really care about what we do here and about offering a truly great community service too, this is after all for the benefit of you lovely people.

I want to make a success of Day Zero for years to come. I find it hard to write this, as I need your help, as success can only happen if we have support from you. 

What’s so puzzling about the current conditions, is that we know how much the people of Buxton and surrounding areas care and appreciate what we do here and the options that we offer to shop in an ethical way and to reduce plastic use. We’ve had some lovely messages of support for what we do and that’s really heartwarming, and we just want to remind as many of you as possible to shop with us. That will completely make the difference to our continued success, without it any business including us would struggle.

Have a think about how you can support us. Are there extra items you could commit to buying from us? Can you refill some of your cleaning products here? Or can you buy our supplements (from Viridian) or bring your olive oil bottle in for refilling and get your dried fruit and nuts while you’re here? Or could you start buying your organic fresh produce here or take advantage of having that delivered to your door each week?

If you have the chance to talk to friends and family that would be really helpful too, word of mouth is powerful. No-one needs to turn up armed with pre-labelled shiny kilner jars ready for refilling, you don’t actually have to do any sort of prep at all as all our dried goods can be taken away in free paper bags and we’ve got plenty of spare bottles knocking around for our household liquid cleaning refills. 

Regarding our organic fresh produce, we’re offering a discount to new delivery customers in Buxton at the moment. Becoming a regular customer means you will get 20% off your first fresh produce box, 15% off your third and free delivery on your fifth. You can pick whatever produce you like each time and we’ll deliver that as a box, or if you’d prefer you can choose a small, medium or large box where we select the fruit and veg each time. All our deliveries currently take place on a Thursday afternoon, I’m fairly sure you’ll have seen Jamie out and about on the cargo bike whatever the weather.

You can order those online at dayzeroshop.tillex.co.uk or in store.

On that subject, we really need the help of volunteers at the moment alongside our paid staff. To help us get more veg boxes out, we just need more hands to pack them and that’s the main way you could help us as a volunteer. The volunteers we have love being involved, we just need to find a couple more of you. 

Being open with you again, this is also of personal help to me while my stress levels are so high. The time commitment is about 2 hours on a Thursday from mid-morning and it doesn’t have to be every single week. Please do get in touch if you’re interested.

So, bringing all this together, we’ll continue what’s right while you support us. We know the passion is out there to support small businesses, and we know we’re not just any small business, we’re about doing the right thing in as many ways as we can. You and the team here have done a lot of good together in the last 7 years and we must not forget that.

I certainly don’t want to sound all doom and gloom in this newsletter, we love having your support and I really want to express my and Holly’s thanks for the regular support we get from many of you. We just need to together make a change in the right direction, and we didn’t want to leave these things unsaid while have a huge opportunity to make Day Zero thrive. We’ve seen so many similar business disappear in the UK and we feel like our community wouldn’t want to allow that to happen here. 

Have a think about how you can help, the coming months are a great time to reset and make us a part of your regular shopping routine. All our gifts are going out on the shelves and our site for online shopping as we head towards the festive season. 

A little bit of your time on a regular basis to make us a destination from now on will make a massive collective difference.’

With love and hope

Mark, Holly, Jamie and the rest of the team x

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