Good practice:

Financial program for Rural Development of SME´s

This grant helps the rural shops to expand their business and grow by adding extra service to what they already offer.
Extra services like this often leads to that more staff is needed and can create new employment possibilities. It gives the rural business owner a possibility to compete with the bigger supermarket and create a larger customer base.
The rural population in the villages can support the rural grocery store instead of going to the bigger supermarkets in the city witch often offers this kind of services.

The grant is provided from the Municipality of Söderhamn and The Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, where 50 % is paid from each participant. The business owner receives 20 Euros per household and week for the home delivery service.
This service is implemented in collaboration between the municipality and the business owner and is often an extension of being an appointed Service Point, but it is not necessary.

The main stakeholders are the rural grocery stores and the main beneficiaries are the local community in all ages. This service can be used by everyone, both the busy family and the elderly citizens without a car.

There are some financial resources needed for the business owner to set up the practice. There is often need of some kind of online solution where the customer can place the order as well as equipment to be able to deliver the groceries in a safe way, especially fresh and frozen goods.

This grant has been available for a few years already with proven results of success from the rural grocery stores that has provided the service.
The number of customers and users of the service has been rising steadily and the business is also seeing an increase in sales.
Now during the Covid-19 situation this has proven to be a very important and necessary service and now all our rural grocery stores in the municipality is providing home delivery of food to the rural customers.

This practice has proven to be even more useful and important now due to the situation the world is facing with the Covid-19 pandemic.
This is a very good solution for preventing spread of the disease, especially for the elderly population as well as when we all should practice social distancing.
In this way everyone can get their necessaries delivered to their doorstep in a safe way. This practice offers a good opportunity for the rural grocery stores to be able to compete with the supermarkets in the city and to get the local population to choose to do their shopping locally.
It creates employment possibilities and helps the rural stores to survive and expand their supply when sales are increasing.