The grocery shop where not one item comes in packaging
TAKING your ‘bag for life’ to do the weekly shop is great for the environment.
But one store has gone further in the fight to protect the planet, by banning wasteful packaging altogether.
Customers at Earth.Food.Love in Totnes, South Devon, are asked to take pots and jars to the shop, which describes itself as Britain’s first ‘zero-waste’ supermarket.
Products including grains, pasta and syrups arrive from local suppliers on bicycles and any items that are wrapped in layers of packaging, such as bags of crisps, are strictly prohibited.
Shoppers take their own containers to the dispensers, which have 200 pesticidetheir free products. They then weigh, label and pay for their ethical foods by the gram.
Richard Eckersley, 28, and wife Nicola, 27, set up the shop after being inspired by a similar outlet in Berlin.
Mr Eckersley, a former footballer who started his career at Manchester United and retired from Oldham Athletic last season, said: ‘We walked in the shop in Berlin and immediately thought, why doesn’t this exist in the UK? We came back and decided to open our own sustainable store.
‘We’re adding products all of the time, but the supplier has to be right for us. We want to live in a world where consuming doesn’t have to cost the earth.
‘We believe returning to these simple ways will benefit not only our health, but the planet’s too.’ Shoppers can even make own ‘nut butter’ using grinding machines. Mr Eckersley said: ‘By far our most popular attraction is the nut butter machines. Filled with both almonds and peanuts, you can re-use your nut butter jar again and again and again, each time filling it with delicious, sticky goodness that’s been ground right in front of you.’
For the customers who turn up without jars, the couple, who have a daughter, Willow, keep compostable paper bags.
The shop’s energy is also ethical and supplied by Gloucestershire-based Ecotricity, which produces renewable gas and electricity. And business is booming. Mrs Eckersley, who was an English teacher before the couple moved from Manchester to Devon to launch the shop in February, said: ‘People say they have come down for the summer holidays just to see it.’
Her husband added: ‘Tourists are fascinated. We have a lot of local residents too. They come in with their own boxes and bags and stock up on what they need.’
They have inspired others to open similar shops in London and Birmingham.
‘Benefit our health and the planet’s’