Inspirational Cheese Retailers 2025: Broad Bean Deli

Broad Bean
Location: Ludlow
Founder: Ian Evans
Founded: 1977 (taken over by Ian in 2016)

If you were given a map and asked to plot out destinations renowned for their food and drink, Ludlow would certainly make the cut.

It’s the perfect location for Broad Bean deli, and this is something owner Ian Evans doesn’t take for granted.

Ian, who originally set his sights on fishmongery before switching to butchery, landing a position as a butcher to the Royal family at Sandringham, made the move to Ludlow to be closer to his then-wife’s parents in Wales.

“The drive was five or six hours. It was ridiculous! I was trying to find a shop of my own, and my wife was a teacher. She was happy to work in a shop, but didn’t want a butchers, so we compromised on a deli. We saw this one in Ludlow. It needed quite a bit of work, but there was a lot of potential. I thought, ‘we can do something with that’.”

Keeping it old school

“I always saw this as being an old school deli, and that stands us out from the crowd,” Ian explains. “We’re not a cafe or a sandwich bar selling a few deli bits. Most of the products people come in for are ingredients they, as cooks or chefs, will use at home. My ambition was to be as good as Wally’s in Cardiff. I thought if we could be half as good as them we’d be OK!”

Nine years in, and the deli continues to grow exponentially. “Which means we must be doing something right. We’re not the same business as we were this time last year. There’s always something new coming in. Standing still is a dangerous place to be in retail nowadays.”

Unashamedly a deli

Being a deli, and not offering food-to-go, is important to Ian. “It means we’ve got space to showcase some fantastic products. It’s only a small shop, but we’ve got 15 different types of pasta, and many things are cheaper than the supermarket. We keep costs down, but also give people a choice of something different.”

The experience of visiting Broad Bean can be an “assault on the senses” he adds. “We’ve got so much in here. And because the counter is at the back of the shop, you do have to do a journey to get to it!”

More than 40 types of cheese grace the chiller, and while there are always a few key offerings you’ll find on the regular, like Cheddars and Baron Bigod, Ian says he continues to refresh what’s available. “I feel like that keeps customers engaged. They won’t find the same cheese in the same spot every week. We try to keep it seasonal, so we’re heavily stocked with goats’ cheese at the moment.”

A new customer base

From a display point of view, Broad Bean is a little different. Instead of a serve over counter, Ian chose a patisserie display. “It’s like a large TV screen – 5ft by 3ft. The cheeses look great, and it creates a lot of engagement and conversations. We’ve always got tasters on the block, so we’ll sample those out while people are looking. Once people try something, they tend to buy it,” he says.

His customer base is largely locals, but also tourists who’ve flocked to Ludlow to investigate its restaurant scene. “And over the last 18 months the age range has expanded. We still get a lot of older, more affluent people in, but younger professionals are finding us – our cheese sales reflect that.”

Bucking the trend as being stuck in their ways with Cheddar and Stilton, Ian says it’s the more mature customers who are being adventurous in their cheese buying decisions, while younger shoppers are happier to be guided. “The older people are more likely to have tried something on their travels or with friends and they’ll come and ask if we’ve got a cheese or if we can get it in, which is great. I love it. We’ve got a couple of grandparents as well who set their grandchildren little food tasks, like trying 12 types of olives in a year – creating the next generation of customers. It’s fantastic.”