Fruit and veg firm closes after 30 years

Frank and Dorothy Carruthers have closed down their fruit and vegetable business, Market Place, in Workington, Cumbria after more than 30 years.

Carruthers was the town’s longest established fruit and vegetable business. Frank Carruthers’s great-uncle first opened the shop in the 1920’s as TA Carruthers and Son and eventually Frank and Dorothy Carruthers bid for the building in 1976, which they renamed the Market Place.

The couple will now retire and end the history that goes back more than 80 years. Dorothy Carruthers said: “We were both ready for calling it a day… At least we have gone out on a high - the supermarkets have never managed to squeeze us out and we have had some fantastic customers.”

Frank Carruthers started off his career in the fruit and vegetable industry by selling produce from village to village from an old Co-op flat-back coal wagon before the couple moved to the Market Place. “Carrots, cabbage and turnip used to be the staples. But now people are willing to try anything - asparagus, chilies and peppers were hardly seen 20 or 25 years ago, but now they’re very popular.”