As a village, Mickleton is relatively well served by a range of retail outlets, at least for the basics in life - food, drink and groceries. There is a butcher but no baker or candle stick maker but there may have been at one time. Even for the butcher there is no associated slaughter house, the meat being sourced from specialist suppliers. The butcher’s skill these days is in the preparation of the cuts of meat and various meat products. In times past animals would have been reared, killed, and the meat prepared on a much more local basis. Nowadays, the animals are reared potentially anywhere, slaughtered and prepared in large central abattoirs and meat cutting facilities. In part this is due to economics of scale, good hygiene practices, refrigeration and distribution systems. If you think about it, most of the food we eat and household products, including bread and candles, come from specialist suppliers anywhere in the country or indeed internationally, and are not produced on a local scale. However, there is an increasing interest in relatively small scale, local and artisanal food production albeit as a specialist market.
David Moore Family Butchers is as the title suggests a family run business and Butchers shop. It is located in Forge House on the High Street at the junction with Back Lane. There has been a butcher there for many years; the previous owner up to 2010 was Clive Porter. At one point the premises may have been the site of a forge and blacksmith's shop (or smithy as it might have been called locally) as the name Forge House suggests. The shop sells some locally sourced meat including game in season. As well as the shop trade, it also supplies a wide range of commercial customers within the Cotswolds.
The old Post Office was on the High Street almost opposite the Kings Arms and near the junction with Mill Lane. It was not just a post office but also a newsagent and general store. with a section that was a fruit and vegetable shop. In the past, the premises have been an old-fashioned grocery store, antique shop and in the 1950's a cafe.
The Village Stores is a Nisa Local convenience store. It is located on the High Street at the junction with Chapel Lane at the Plantation. Nisa was a mutual style company which meant it is owned by its independent retail members. Nisa, however, is now part of the Co-op group. There is a certain irony to this in that in the past the shop was a branch of a local cooperative society. There is a rather splendid picture in the Mickleton Archive of the store in the livery of this society, which shows retailing in a bygone age. It is now a mini-supermarket providing a wide range of products including fresh products, general groceries and drinks. On a Sunday it has a full range of newspapers. There had been a store there for many years under various guises. Originally it had been a draper's store, and then became a branch of the ‘Bidford-on-Avon & Mickleton Co-operative Society’. On the demise of the Society it became ‘The Village Stores’, which had been run by a succession of local people. It is well used and attracts customers not only from the village but also the wider surrounding area.