A DOWNTON village shop was relaunched on Friday following a Simply Fresh makeover.

The launch, by Mayor of Salisbury Jo Broom, saw an 8ft baguette broken and shared.

Owner of Taylor’s Simply Fresh of Downton Meg Taylor said: “In many countries and cultures, the breaking and sharing of bread is profoundly symbolic. For us, it symbolizes the sharing of local produce in our village, celebrating the sharing of good food, and will instill a real community feel and culture.

“The mayor was there, along with the media, parish council, MPs and almost the whole village.”

The shop will also has an in-house chef Carl Mooney, who will be cooking up gastronomic delights, taking the hassle out of busy lives by enabling customers to collect delicious home-cooked, wholesome meals to eat at home.The free community herb garden outside the shop will also be available to all.

Mrs Taylor said: “We want to celebrate local produce, provide great service and give customers what they want, which is good quality food. There is so much locally available it seems crazy to go to the supermarket when you can just pop down the road.

“We can guarantee provenance and can’t be beaten on freshness of produce. We want to add to the local vibrancy, provide a new focal point for local villages and their communities and an outlet for local producers to join us.”

There are also reuseable and refillable bottles of extra virgin olive oil and red and white wines in refillable and reuseable bottles from Borough Wines.

Davinder Jheeta, creative director of Simply Fresh, said: “We are delighted to be working in partnership with Taylors’ of Downton to bring local people the best of local produce.

“There isn’t another Simply Fresh store for more than 70 miles, so we are excited to be rolling out this joint venture here in Wiltshire.”