Speciality Food Inspirational Cheese Retailers 2025

ignited within her. Could she turn the smaller, original haberdashers into the ultimate food shop? The answer is yes. “If you live here and you wanted nice cheese, you had to get in the car and drive 30 minutes to a farm shop or into Edinburgh,” she says. “I thought, if I want my own food life here to be better, surely the rest of Dunfermline wants it as well?” A place for everyone Aileen wanted Must Be Crackers to offer an elevated shopping experience, but at the heart of her plans was that the shop must be accessible to everybody. “It couldn’t be so fancy that it was intimidating,” she says. “Or put off people because they can’t pronounce the names of the cheeses. It can be a scary experience to visit a cheesemonger! Equally, Dunfermline has a wide range of mixed means people. Sometimes 28 @specialityfood M ust Be Crackers founder, Aileen Wright, fizzes with excitement as she talks about her absolute adoration of cheese, retail, and her “wonderful customers”. In only two years, the cheesemonger has amassed leagues of adoring fans, drawn to the shop for its constantly changing, interesting selection, and for the truly, truly, genuinely warm welcome and ‘unstuffy’ environment Aileen and her team have created. Coming from a large Irish family (spending a lot of time buying lovely things with her dad in a nearby old- fashioned deli) Aileen understands what it means to nourish and nurture people – to make them feel at home in her presence. And it’s this that is central to the success of the business. From a career in sales and retail, Aileen opened a haberdashery shop in Dunfermline 10 years ago. When it moved to bigger premises, a little spark THE JOY BRINGER “My customers are amazing,” says Aileen. “We meet some of the most resilient people, the kindest people. If they usually come in twice a week, they’ll tell us when they’re going on holiday so we don’t wonder where they are. There’s one chap, who’s visually impaired, who’ll call up and say, ‘I’ll be in on Thursday, can I have a little cheese box? Here’s what I like and don’t like’. That trust and rapport we have is so special. I love it.” WHAT I LOVE MOST ABOUT BEING A CHEESEMONGER SCOTLAND Must Be Crackers LOCATION: DUNFERMLINE FOUNDED: 2023 FOUNDER: AILEENWRIGHT