Introducing the refillery!
After almost a year of being open on Station Road the number of visitors to my little pink sustainable living shop asking if and when I would be providing food refills reached a high enough level that it couldn’t be ignored for much longer.
This was around February time, and to be completely frank, with the downturn in the economy thanks to 13 years of tory misrule combined with the months after Christmas being the least fruitful to a retail business, there was no way that I was going to be able to make this sizeable addition to the shop by myself without having to wait maybe a year.
So at the start of March I launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise a relatively modest amount of money and create a real community feel to the endeavour. In return for people’s kindness I would provide a refill station supplying plastic-free loose foods close to where people live.
I was blown away by the response!
To be honest I didn’t know what to expect. I knew that some customers wanted an extended refillery (I already provided toiletries and household liquids as refills) and in my mind this was going to be a slow burn. We’d get there in maybe six months.
Two. You did it in two! I’ll never forget the generosity people showed me and the speed at which support was given. By the start of May I closed off the crowdfunding as enough had been raised to put in the very first order of food. All that was left to do was decide what to get in, and also build the custom cabinet to house it all, because why easily buy a readymade unit when you can buy sheets of timber, a box of screws and do it yourself!
After a bit of a false start over the May Day bank holiday it was a good job we got a do-over the very next weekend with Charles’ coronation. By the time that Monday rolled around it was time for the soft launch of the refillery. 48 different choices of plastic-free food and pantry cupboard options, from organic pastas and rice, to whole brazil nuts and dried mango strips, and a selection of 20 dried herbs and spices like cumin, rosemary and garam masala.
If you’re new to the concept of refilling and how to go about it it’s such a fantastic way to reduce your household waste by not bringing food packaging in, and instead refilling what you already have. Herb and spice jars, tupperware tubs and containers, paper bags, anything that can hold food securely can be used… and has been! One thing I really love about being a shopkeeper in my shop is seeing all the ingenius vessels you all bring in. Sometimes it’s beautifully matching and labelled spice jars, other times it’s pouring cous cous into an old Holland & Barrett vitamin pot!
The other amazing thing about refilling is that you’re buying your food by the weight. There’s a couple of genuinely great perks that come with that. Firstly you only need to buy what you need. No excess goods hanging around at the back of the cupboard for months and eventually becoming food waste. The cake you’re baking only needs a handful of currants? No problem! Pop in and buy just a handful. The second perk is that you don’t need to have an empty container. Think you’re running low on something, don’t want to run out but don’t know when you’ll next be popping in to shop? It’s all good! We weigh every container before and after refilling and you only pay for the difference.
Whether it’s 23p or £9.86, it’s a fully flexible system so you only py for what you take, and you only take what you need.
I’ve done my absolute best to match or beat prices locally, either the supermarkets, or other places you can buy food from, and will always do my best to keep these down as low as possible. I don’t like the idea that being kind to the environment means being unkind to your bank balance, and a huge reason to keep prices of food low is so that it is accessible to more people. No one should feel excluded from being able to make changes to their shopping habits to look after the planet.
Prices are subject to change, things are pretty volatile around the world now, and especially here in the UK where we shot ourselves in the foot with the EU exit which destroyed most of our trade agreements, and pairing that with a failing government who refuses to place windfall taxes or intervene in inhumane profiteering from supermarkets and big businesses, prices can fluctuate, but I’ll always do my best to keep spikes to a minimum.
All that being said, this is the current list of products in the refillery and how much they all cost…
