About Us

The faces behind the food

Grow Wild was established in 1998 and has grown from a very small operation (run from a spare room in an Edinburgh flat), to a company employing 9-10 people, and delivering to customers throughout central Scotland. Grow Wild is owned by Lindsay Girvan who was brought up on fantastic home-cooked real food and healthy whole foods, (her mum had a thing about macrobiotic cooking and seaweed jelly for a time...). Good natural food, a love of great tasting ingredients, a concern for environmental issues, and a desire to offer a service that she herself would want to use led to the establishment of Grow Wild.

In 1998, Lindsay was working at The University of Edinburgh, and thought that distributing organic food locally would be a part-time enterprise, but the business took off, and following the arrival of her son Ethan in 1999, and already juggling one thing too many, the decision was made to give up the day job and work solely in developing Grow Wild. As the business developed, bigger premises were needed, and after a couple of expansion moves, Grow Wild moved out to Bathgate over 3 years ago, bringing with it its two longstanding drivers, Les and Ian. Since then, we’ve added some great people to the team and now have a happy bunch of organic people getting great tasting food out to Central Scotland.

Particularly over the last 10 years, awareness of organic principles, and the underlying philosophy of producing natural food without harming the planet has blossomed and become much more mainstream. It has been very satisfying to have been part of the movement- Lindsay is delighted that she no longer gets asked ‘What is organic and can you send me a fact sheet?’, but rather ‘which organic certification body are you licensed by?’ which shows how things have moved on.

The Grow Wild team has worked strongly with local organic growers and suppliers to enable us to offer a fantastic range of produce to our customers. We bring in fresh organic produce several times a week, and our warehouse packing staff quality control, pack, and organise customer orders. With the ever increasing range of general groceries, fresh local dairy, bakery and Scottish meat and poultry products, getting all things organic delivered to your door has never been easier. These are distributed by our delivery drivers Ian, les and Stuart direct to our customers in Edinburgh, Glasgow, West Lothian and Central Scotland.

Our core product for home delivery is an assorted and seasonal box of fruit and veg (various sizes and types to suit every household). We believe strongly in minimal packaging and recycling. Deliveries to our customers comprises organic fruit and veg packed in re-usable boxes made from 100% recycled material, packaging within the boxes of assorted fruit and vegetables is kept to a minimum, and we ask our customers to return boxes and egg cartons for re-use. We also re-use original wooden crates in which produce arrives to us. We have a strong environmental policy which we revisit regularly. Since we broadened our range to include meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products, we have adhered to a strict animal welfare policy in relation to sourcing.

Our drivers uplift used crates and boxes from our customers each time they make a delivery. Fresh waste is minimal, but what is generated, is picked up by a local organic grower and used for pig feed and compost.

Grow Wild was listed in The Sunday's Telegraph "Stella" supplement (8 June 2008) as one of "The Very Best Vegetable Box Schemes" in the UK (the only listed in Scotland), so feel we must be doing something right! We are also listed by The Times online as one of the top 35 in the UK (of which there are more than 500!), and in the Guardian Good Food Guide.

We believe strongly in providing a good service and have a customer-focused approach with a personal touch. We like to get constructive feedback and act upon it. Please feel free to contact us with any comments - we would very much appreciate this, so that we can evaluate and modify the service you are receiving.

The Grow Wild Team are:

The Girls...

In the office:

• Lindsay Girvan, Director
• Lynne McNeil, Manager
• Kat Bowstead, Customer Administrator

 In the warehouse:

• Linda Swan, Warehouse Manager
• Carrie-Anne Baird, Warehouse veg packer
• Jane McMahon, Warehouse veg packer

The boys...

Our delivery team:

• Ian Brown, driver for deliveries to Glasgow, Central area and West Lothian
• Stuart Murphy, driver for deliveries to Edinburgh, Glasgow, and our wholesale customers
• Les Young, driver for our Edinburgh deliveries for the last 9 years!