The sweet taste of success

When Sharon Longcroft and Hugh Fink took over a successful greengrocers in Boroughbridge they had no plans to expand their empire.

“Hugh was really into food and he always liked the idea of having his own business,” explains Sharon. “When the Fruit Basket came up for sale he kept talking about it and I knew it was what he really wanted to do.”

At the time Hugh was working for a large engineering company, commuting to Ashby de la Zouche every day, and knew very little about running a small retail business.

But the idea just wouldn’t go away.

“Every now and then he’d say ‘I wonder if it’s still for sale’.”

Eventually, with Sharon’s support, Hugh decided to give up his day job and bought the Fruit Basket.

The shop was something of a local institution, having been in the town for 21 years. Having a background in training and psychology, Sharon was aware that they couldn’t just storm in and change everything.

So they adopted a softly, softly approach, making gradual adjustment to the stock to fulfil Hugh’s ambition for it to become a luxury food emporium.

“I wanted it to be the first place people came when they were looking for what might be an unusual ingredient rather than the third or fourth place they visited,” says Hugh.

“People would often come in and say they knew we’d have it, but they’d been to lots of other places first. I wanted that to change.”

He also wanted to make it clearer what his shop was all about.

“I wanted us to stock things that you couldn’t really get anywhere else.”

Eventually, after three years of working their way into the hearts of local shoppers, Hugh and Sharon decided the time was right to rebrand and really put their stamp on the shop. But changing the name was by no means an easy feat.

“I said ‘let’s call it Fink’, but Hugh felt it might be too urban for a small town like Boroughbridge,” says Sharon who moved to the North Yorkshire town from County Durham when she met Hugh.

So they decided to call it Longcrofts after Sharon’s surname. They had got a long way down the line to renaming the shop, but then struggled to come up with a strap line.

“We sat in the pub with a beer doing some brainstorming, trying to come up with a strap line that would go with Longcrofts but just couldn’t make anything work. And then Hugh said ‘maybe Fink is better’. And that was that.”

Think Food Think Fink became their strap line and in June this year the Fruit Basket was transformed into Fink and its bright green logo.

“People have been really positive about the change,” says Hugh. “They love the colour and say it brightens up the High Street. Some people do ask why we called it Fink, but when I explain it’s my name they understand.” Fink is becoming synonymous with fine food in the area, but it soon became clear that there was another gap in the market.

“We always supplied Guppy’s, the Yorkshire artisan chocolate, but people kept asking us if we had anything different that would make a nice gift,” says Sharon who also runs a picture framing business. “We just didn’t have the space to stock more chocolates and we were also very aware that if people were looking to spend more than £15 on a box of chocolate they didn’t expect to find it in a greengrocers.”

And so when a former lingerie shop became free a few doors down from Fink they decided to go for it.

“It would have been nice to have Sweet Fink as an extension of Fink, but there just wasn’t anywhere to go. We weren’t trying take over the street,” laughs Sharon. Sweet Fink opened on Saturday and stocks high end chocolates sourced from across the globe.

“A lot of people associate quality chocolate with Belgium, but the Germans and Italians make fantastic chocolates. We even have single origin chocolate bars from Vietnam.”

Sharon plans to have ‘guest’ chocolate, where people will be able to try something unusual.

But her favourite part of the shop is the loose chocolate counter.

“To get quality loose chocolate, people have to travel to York, Harrogate or even Leeds, I wanted somewhere they could come more locally to get something exceptional, be it for a gift or a dinner party – or just a bit of indulgence. Boroughbridge is a really great foodie place and we felt it was another great addition to that.” The couple plan to start a chocolate club and also to develop their recently launched website to allow people to purchase online. “We are very lucky in that we have a fantastic chocolate supplier who spends a day with me, tasting and discussing the chocolates,” says Sharon. “Sweet Fink a has very similar ethos to Fink, if we wouldn’t use something then we don’t stock it. Obviously we stock things that aren’t to our taste, but we will be guided by our customers and their feedback.”

There are 26 different types of loose chocolates and you can buy one or a box of 48 – depending on how deep your pockets are.

Quality may be the name of the game, but there is still something for every budget. Sweet Fink still stocks a large range of Yorkshire-based Guppys which starts from under £4.

As well as chocolate, Sharon stocks a range of speciality cakes and biscuits.

“I like to refer to Sweet Fink as a boutique,” she says. And with its bright pink wall paper and trendy clock and fittings it is clear to see why.