Minimalism is it

A new generation of corner shops fuels the zero waste movement.

by Sylvia Meise

Package overkill? No thanks! Zero waste? Yes, please! This, in short, is the major goal for a new kind of corner shop offering refill of dry or liquid bulk products. The founders are mostly women, often without a retail background but all of them with a strong aversion to packaging piling up and turning into waste soon after shopping. Catherine Conway was the first of them to turn amazement into action when she launched Unpackaged ten years ago. As she couldn’t find shops offering refilling her own jars and containers, she decided to create one herself. She got started with a market stall in London. It was an experiment: Would the idea attract enough customers? Would they accept unattractive conditions, i.e. not only bringing a bag for shopping but also jars or containers? Yes and yes. Conway hit a nerve. The first customers were just of her kind. Seeking a possibility to avoid waste and for that purpose accepting any inconvenience. So Conway dared the next step: opening a small corner shop in Islington, London.

The customer demand was impressive – but so was the rent for the small shop. Moreover, it didn’t allow sale in big scale. So, the team looked out for a new location – and hopefully opened a bigger shop in Hackney, another part of London, in December 2012. Conway included a bar and bistro concept to provide the whole enterprise with a profitable income. However, this calculation failed. The enterprise closed in January 2014, after just one year. In the meantime, another packaging-free shop tried out the idea of combining coffee shop and shopping in London, The Dry Goods Store. It closed at the end of 2016 after three and a half years. Looking back Conway states: “The addition of a café and bar was a distraction from the core business of refilling.”

Comeback in 2015

She and her team took a sabbatical phase, evaluated their experiences and after that reinvented the business. In 2015 Unpackaged was back. Conway gave up independence and relaunched Unpacked as a concession within one of seven stores of the supermarket chain Planet Organic.

Win-win for both. Planet Organic got the advantage of a well stocked and experienced bulk area attracting zero wasters who, once in the store, buy other products too. As to Unpackaged, Conway describes the advantage as a great relief: “I always knew that the UK “alternative” grocery market accounts for only about 25 percent of grocery sales, while the other 75 percent are carried out through supermarket chains. Therefore, I knew that if we want to achieve any environmental change on a greater scale we needed to work with larger grocery chains to promote our vision, but that was always impossible whilst trying to run our own shop.”

One third of the food produced in the world gets lost or wasted

According to the figures of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), “roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted.” Waste ending up in landfill is one of the main contributors of CO2 emissions. As food waste is often caused by over-sized packaging, bulk shopping may help to tackle this problem. It encourages us to buy smaller portions, just what is really needed.

In 2008 Unpackaged conducted a customer survey. Findings show that over 60 percent of the customers have changed their shopping behaviour since they started shopping with Unpackaged. Conway cites the findings: “They think more about how their food is packaged, throw away less rubbish and do not buy over-packaged products in other shops. Over 80 percent of them stated that since they started bulk shopping they have felt that they’re doing something to help the environment.” An international survey by market researcher Global Data confirmed her findings in 2015: 50 percent of the surveyed consumers pay attention to environmentally friendly packaging and 70 percent want to reduce packaging. On the other hand, there is a potential packaging industry lobbying for the benefit of packaging. In her master's thesis “Barriers and Incentives to Zero Packaging Food  Retail: A Global Stocktake” Alexia Smits Sandano analyses in depth the diverse points retailers must keep in mind or change.

Zero waste shops are springing up all over the world

Food waste, environmental problems, garbage patches in the ocean... waste has become a topic of public interest - and zero waste shops are springing up all over the world. This may be the reason  why customers are attracted by the refill principle. About 100 stores are running worldwide and many more are waiting in the wings, especially in Germany. A current list of packaging-free shops is provided by the Dutch web designer Rutger Muller. Like Conway, the designer wants to support a cultural change: “From on-site customer research and conversations with the well-running zero waste shop Robuust in Antwerp I know that many customers made it their habit to bring plastic boxes, plastic zip-locks and small cotton bags instead of glass jars. I would like to further investigate this. But I feel I need to map out the market first and it’s steadily growing... Since I am mainly a web designer, with an interest in presenting open data, building communities and growing my brand, I decided to share as much data as possible publicly. Now recently, I’ve been thinking to shift the goal of Bepakt.com to creating an online community and portal for consumers and shops.”

On her site http://www.beunpackaged.com/ Conway summarises the benefit of packaging-free shopping: “Saves you money, saves food waste, saves packaging from landfill, saves carbon emissions.” In addition, she claims that zero waste shops offer a special kind of relief: “Customers don’t have to choose.” There are no brands highlighted, not ten sorts of cereals but only two or three. Bulk shopping is linked to the experience of simplicity plus the feeling of having done something good. Strong arguments for coming back. With a cleaned container to refill. It is the same as with returnable bottles: customers regularly return too.

Albeit refill is a great drive for repurchasing, it is a barrier too. Refill shopping can’t be done spontaneously after work. It must be planned. However, until it has become second nature to customers, retailers should be prepared. Most shops therefore purchase or even lend containers and bags. Waste reduction is a challenge but zero waste has become a lifestyle movement. A minimalistic philosophy spread by bloggers, social media communities – and shops like Unpackaged. On 12 March Conway hosted the Franco-Canadian anchor women of the zero waste movement Bea Johnson for lecture and discussion. Johnson, her husband and two kids are producing not more than one incredible jar of household waste every year. Bulk shopping is part of this performance.

How to start your business:

Asked for advice for zero waste entrepreneurs, Conway emphasizes that, when thinking about opening a shop, people should ask themselves questions like these:

• Do they see themselves as shop managers and are they ready to fully commit their time and energy to such a project?
• What kind of products would they like to sell versus what kind of products would people like to buy without packaging?
• How to make the shopping experience as smooth as possible so that they can address customers beyond the hardcore zero wasters?
• Where would be the best place (in terms of footfall and cost) for them to open a shop?

They may not be able to answer all these questions (as well as all the questions that need to be answered when you want to create a business) but the network can help a lot, or as Rutger Muller from Bepakt recommends: “Speak to as many shops as possible. Perhaps also some of them who went bankrupt.”