What Changed at Millwood and What Didn’t

Walk into Millwood today and there is no mistaking that things have changed. The shop has undergone a major refurbishment and reopened as Millwood Budgens, bringing a new look, considerably more space and a much wider range of groceries and everyday essentials to the site in Cam.

But changing a business doesn’t necessarily mean starting again. Some of the relationships behind Millwood’s shelves go back considerably further than the recent refurbishment.

Frocester Fayre has been supplying Millwood for around 20 years, Woodland Valley Eggs for around 15, while Winstones Cotswold Ice Cream brings another long-established Gloucestershire family business into the mix.

They are three very different businesses, but together they illustrate something important about the direction Millwood is taking: offering considerably more choice while keeping local relationships that were already worth having.

Frocester Fayre: Around 20 Years Supplying Millwood

Just a few miles from Cam at Church Farm in Frocester is a family business with which Millwood has been working for around two decades.

Frocester Fayre began selling at farmers’ markets in 1999, before opening its farm shop the following year. Today, the business has its own in-house butchers, with carcasses broken down and prepared for sale at the farm, alongside an in-house kitchen producing pies, pasties, sausage rolls, Scotch eggs and other products using its own recipes.

Over the years, Frocester Fayre has supplied Millwood with a variety of fresh produce, and the relationship has grown to the point where Millwood is its largest retail customer outside Frocester Fayre’s own operation.

That relationship was established long before anybody was discussing a new shop or a change to Budgens.

We recently spoke to Nikki Pinker about the history of the family business, the changes she has seen over the years and how a local supplier relationship has lasted for around two decades.

Read the full Frocester Fayre and Millwood story →

Woodland Valley Eggs: Another Relationship Measured in Years

A few miles in the other direction, near Dursley, is Woodland Valley Eggs, run by Dave Bick.

Dave has been producing eggs locally for 17 years and supplying Millwood for around 15 of them. His free-range hens and the day-to-day realities of looking after them are a long way removed from the world of national distribution centres and anonymous supply chains.

His route into the business wasn’t particularly conventional either. Egg farming wasn’t something Dave had spent years planning to do, but what began almost by accident developed into an established local operation.

Now he is beginning to think about what eventually comes next.

Dave’s children aren’t looking to take over the business, but he would much rather see Woodland Valley continue than simply disappear when he eventually decides to slow down. One possibility would be finding younger people interested in learning the operation and, in time, taking it forward, with Dave able to pass on his knowledge of the birds and the business along the way.

That makes Woodland Valley’s story about more than where Millwood’s eggs come from. It’s also about what happens to small, established local businesses when the person behind them eventually wants to step away.

Read Dave Bick’s Woodland Valley Eggs story →

Winstones Ice Cream: Another Gloucestershire Name With History Behind It

Not every local supplier relationship needs to stretch back decades with Millwood to have plenty of history behind it.

Winstones Cotswold Ice Cream has been making ice cream beside Rodborough Common since 1925.

The story began with Albert Winstone, who started selling refreshments to walkers and golfers on the Common after losing his job as a French polisher. When customers began asking for ice cream, he experimented with a Victorian recipe, beginning a family business that would eventually pass through four generations.

Winstones celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2025, and the family still makes its ice cream on the same Gloucestershire site. The company says it continues to use the original Victorian recipe, producing its ice cream in small batches with locally sourced fresh milk and double cream.

Today, Winstones is another of the Gloucestershire producers whose products form part of the local offering at Millwood.

Find out more about Winstones Cotswold Ice Cream →

More Choice Doesn’t Have to Mean Less Local

There is an obvious practical reason for Millwood becoming a Budgens store.

Customers expect more from a modern convenience shop than they once did. The refurbishment has allowed Millwood to greatly increase its grocery range, introduce new products and make much more of the shop itself.

A national retail group can provide access to range, distribution and buying power that would be difficult for a single independent business to reproduce on its own. But there is another side to being a business that has spent 60 years in Cam. Over that time, relationships are built that cannot simply be ordered with the next delivery.

Frocester Fayre and Woodland Valley Eggs are particularly good examples because their connections with Millwood stretch back around 20 and 15 years respectively. Winstones demonstrates something slightly different: the opportunity to put products from another established Gloucestershire family business alongside the considerably broader range now available through Budgens.

The two things don’t have to compete. In fact, combining them is arguably one of the more interesting opportunities created by the new Millwood.

Why These Relationships Matter

For customers, a local supplier might simply be a name on a label or a product on the shelf. Behind that, though, are relationships that have been built over years, sometimes decades, between businesses that know the same area, serve many of the same people and have grown alongside one another.

That is what makes the stories of Frocester Fayre and Woodland Valley Eggs particularly interesting. Their connection with Millwood was not created for the refurbishment or as part of a new marketing campaign. It was already there.

Winstones adds another layer to that picture: a Gloucestershire family business with more than a century of history, still producing locally and still finding its way onto shelves close to home.

As Millwood looks ahead, those are the kinds of relationships worth continuing to make room for. Not because “local” sounds good on a sign, but because there are real people and businesses behind it.