A BALLINGRY shop has recently unveiled £550,000 worth of renovations. 

Avens on Benarty Square, which was formerly the Nisa, held a reopening event last week to show its customers their new look and give back to the community. 

Zahid Mukhtar, who owns the store, told the Times: "We went through refurbishment, we invested about £550,000 on a shop refit and extension to expand our product range and suppliers. We’ve widened the aisles to make it much more accessible. "

It comes after they rebranded, allowing them to provide a greater range of products from local suppliers. 

"Whereas before we were Nisa," he said, "We’re more independent now and can reach out to more local suppliers.  

"Avens is a name we came up with, Avens is a flower found in Scotland. It encapsulates our narrative of being local, employing local people and working with local suppliers and producers."

To show their commitment to the community, they fundraised for the Benarty Toy Appeal by holding a raffle with a range of different prizes for their customers. 

He continued: "In total, we raised £343.76 and the raffle money all went to the Benarty Toy Appeal which is for the children whose families can't afford to give them something for Christmas.

"It's a local charity that we wanted to support and give back to the local community.

"The prizes we had on offer were a 40inch TV, hampers, a Tennent's lager brewery tour, a 6-month supply of Irn-Bru, meat vouchers and shopping vouchers, he first 200 customers got a carrier bag of goodies and messages and every customer got a free burger."

To cut the ribbon of the shop, the Avens team had Scottish League footballer, Ally Mitchell, citizen of the year, Wullie Stark and young citizen of the year, Keevah Young come along.  

Ally, Wullie and Keevah cutting the ribbon. (Image: Avens)