THIS is the story of how a quirky wild deli within a village came to be where everything is foraged.

Forage Box was set up more than two years ago as an online retailer providing subscription boxes of wild food that had been searched for and workshops then followed.

And since March, there has been a wild deli on Star Lane in Lymm which is open on weekends.

“I found this little shop which used to sell ice cream, burgers and chips but I wasn’t using it as a front-of-house space,” said owner Jim Parums.

“Everyone kept knocking on the door asking for coffees and ice creams so I thought I would get a coffee machine and sell my stuff from here.

“Slowly, that has evolved into what it is now with takeaway food which is all wild as well.”

Jim, based in Broadheath, chose to be a forager because he ‘wanted to be a happy dad’ for his two little girls.

“I set up this business because that was the obvious way to do it and I needed the platform to make it a full-time job.”

Jim says all the food, used to is as hyper-seasonal as it can be and that involves coastal vegetables, mushrooms, fruits, seaweed, herbs and seeds.

The 31-year-old continued: “It is purely what is available and growing in the wild at that time of the year.

“Anything you find in a foraging book or that you might see on MasterChef that you thought was food for people lots of money or who really know what they are doing, with Forage Box I want to bring those ingredients to people in a simple way.”

And Jim is keen to work with the environment, not to take advantage of it.

He added: “Sustainability has to be a part of it.

“We’re currently living through a food and farming crisis and financial issues but we mustn’t forget there is only a finite amount of this stuff for people.

“If you take more than what you put back, that’s not sustainable.

“Within the foraging community, everyone is a bit of a hippie at heart and loves nature.

“We’re not there to take advantage of it, we’re there to work with it.

“Everything has to live in balance with each other and that’s what we’re aiming to do.

“I also believe foraging has a bit of a bad reputation when compared to farming and fishing because people have stripped woodland of mushrooms, we definitely don’t do that and everything that we do is with sustainability and regeneration in mind.”

Jim, who grew up in Altrincham, is proud of how his project is turning out.

“It was an experimental project and it’s paying off,” said Jim.

“Currently we are only open at weekends but the more people that visit, the more likely we are to be open every day of the week.

“Hopefully, it’s going to be open every single weekend from now on as it was just me but now we have someone employed there.

“It’s going really well and I’m quite proud of it.”