A Vegetarian, Vegan, Natural Food City Centre Retailer
Find all you need for your healthy, plant based lifestyle in Scotland's capital city or online at Real Foods
Visit Real Foods, instore or online and enjoy our ever expanding product range of more than 10,000 natural, organic, plant based health and wholefood products.
Leading the way
For over 45 years Real Foods has been selling natural, organic, vegan and vegetarian food in Edinburgh and worldwide. When you visit our shops you are visiting the largest independent Scottish retailer of Organic, Vegetarian, Vegan, Special Diet and Fairtrade products
Real Foods has been selling natural, healthy food in Edinburgh since 1975. We have 100s of suppliers many of which are small local businesses, and we have fresh products arriving daily to serve our instore and online customers. We aim to get the freshest, highest quality products to all our customers.
Looking for something different?
Ask any of our team if you cannot find what you are looking for and they will help you find or order whatever you need. Real Foods has the ability to source and supply any product within the natural foods and alternative therapies market. Whether you are shopping in one of our two established Edinburgh stores or in our thriving web shop, the Real Foods team is on hand to help and to advise.
Ethical and Environmentally Friendly Shopping
Wanting to save the planet for future generations
Real Foods are committed ethical outlets stocking Fairtrade and environmentally friendly products. Always conscious of our impact on the environment, we strive to recycle and conserve energy in as many ways as possible.
From the very beginning, before the perils of plastic became a worldwide concern, the people at Real Foods made the decision to use cellulose packaging for our own brand products rather than plastic bags. With the increase in worldwide concern providing more choice of sustainable packaging, in more recent years we upgraded our own brand packaging to a completely natural, home-compostable option.
To reduce our carbon footprint, we offer a range of locally sourced products including honey, real ales, wines and a fresh selection of organic fruit, vegetables and salads.
You can find out more about Real Foods by looking at our Community page.
So Why Shop With Real Foods?
We have been caring about our customers' wellbeing for over half a century
As Scotland's longest serving vegan, vegetarian, organic natural food retailer we serve over 1000 customers every week in our Edinburgh shops, and we have over 22,000 customers registered on our online shop.
Because we are certified and licenced by the Soil Association, customers know that they can buy our organic goods with absolute confidence in their organic status.
Rated 'Excellent' by our customers on Trust Pilot, customers can be confident that they will be buying products that are exactly what they say they are and our 'No Quibble' policy allows them to return anything they are not completely satisfied with.
We offer good value and great discounts
You can buy in bulk at wholesale prices, saving money and packaging. If you want to buy our own brand prepacks then the larger sizes cost you less per kg. So, the more you buy the less packaging you use and the cheaper it becomes.
We have hundreds of great products on promotion every day instore and online with many of your healthy brand favourites available to buy at lower prices.
If you visit our Edinburgh shops, look out for our very popular daily half price Managers Special instore offer.
Be an early instore visitor and you can also sign up for our Early Bird scheme, giving you 10% off your full price shopping during the first hour of business each day. Remember to bring your Early Bird card with you though if you intend to use it.
Senior Citizens and students can also benefit from 5% discount on their full price shopping in our Edinburgh shops at any time of the day. Just show us your valid ID before we put your shopping through to get your concession.
We offer great variety and choice
With over 7000 products to choose from online and instore, you will be sure to find what you are looking for. If you can't then please do ask our staff and we will try to find and order what you want.
New products are arriving instore all the time and we have deliveries of fresh food on a daily basis.
From 'Mail Order' to Web Orders
Real Foods worldwide
Yesterday's Real Foods' mail order business is flourishing through today's website. Orders are dispatched daily, all over the world, to customers in need of vegetarian, vegan, organic, Fairtrade, free-from healthy foods and ethical products delivered to their door.
Customers who shop online with us are tapping into the expertise that has maintained Real Foods at the forefront of natural food retailing for over 50 years and when you place an order with us you've given your order to a dedicated team working around the clock to pick, pack and dispatch your order as quickly as possible to your door via a 24 hour delivery service.
Real Foods in Edinburgh
We are constantly seeking out new and interesting items for our customers to enjoy and with 1000s of customers every week, we are pleased that we are able to provide healthy alternatives to processed foods at prices the public can afford.
The Real Foods stores are open every day of the year except Christmas and Boxing Days and January 1st and 2nd. Outside of opening hours, we have an additional team of busy people who are hard at work picking stock for our web customers and stocking the shelves ready for the next day's customers. With the exception of our four days of holiday each year there are things happening in our stores all through the day and night.
Both Real Foods shops are charming and friendly with an enthusiastic and knowledgeable team, always willing to offer advice on a diverse range of unique and difficult to find products. If you would like to know more about special diets, or simply how to live in a greener and more eco-friendly way they are happy to help point you in the right direction.
With over 40 years trading in Edinburgh, the shops have become an integral part of the local community and have become landmarks in the city. Real Foods believes in providing the best customer service and we are proud of the fact that many of our customers have built up long-term friendships with our team.
You can learn more about our staff, customers, suppliers and our local area by reading our Community page.
Real Foods history
Real Foods opened in Edinburgh in 1975. However, that was not the beginning. Real Foods started trading in 1963 selling organic vegetables on a market stall in the south of England. At about the same time we started to sell macrobiotic foods imported from Belgium and Japan as macrobiotics could not be sourced in the UK. It was then a small step to start buying commodities from a London merchant to feed the 'Aldermaston Ban the Bomb' marchers who would assemble at an Elizabethan mansion in the Chilterns prior to marching.
When it opened in Edinburgh, Real Foods was the capital's first natural food shop. Starting a revolution in food retailing and eating patterns, it introduced the concept of selling natural foods loose and in bulk to the public. The aim was to provide healthy alternatives to processed foods at prices the public could afford. The philosophy from the beginning has always been 'the more you buy, the less it will cost per lb' and the only thing which has changed about in all those years is the conversion to metric.
Our Broughton Street store was originally opened as a warehouse to store imported goods and also to serve as a mail order warehouse for the dispatch of international orders. Shelving, still in the store today, was installed made from recycled, second-hand ex-local government oak desks. Once shelved the next obvious step was to invite the buying public in.
Our Tollcross store opened its doors in 1981 to give customers on the other side of the city an opportunity to shop for healthy food locally.