What do you get when you combine clever marketing, a cute shop, delicious and beautiful food, and eliminate the packaging? A genius idea we wish we had thought of first! Unpackaged is a boutique grocery shop in London that works like the bulk food section of your local store, relying on you, the customer, to bring in your own packaging as a way to eliminate waste. The store sells everything from nuts, flour, sugar, beans, herbs and spices, to oils, vinegars, produce, cheese, bread and even wine! With strict eco-policies on where their source their food, Unpackaged is one of the most environmentally friendly grocery stores we’ve seen.
Started by Catherine Conway in 2006, Unpackaged was a small market stall that became so popular that Conway decided to open up a full-fledged shop. The store sells almost all their goods out of bulk bins and the packaged items they do carry are minimal and easily recyclable. It’s certainly not as large as most grocery stores, and it doesn’t carry multiple brands of one item — in fact the store doesn’t carry many well-known brands (except for the wines).
Why unpackaged? Three reasons: first, it’s cheaper to buy and sell things in bulk, since the extra cost of packaging isn’t passed on to you. Second, packaging is a waste of resources and time, and requires extra fuel to transport that weight. Finally, packaging is really just trash and causes pollution because it is so often sent to the landfill.
very friendly idea
Love the idea! I’ve often thought of all the waste in packaging when I shop for not only groceries but anything. I would love to see something like this in my neighborhood here in Ohio. I would most definitely patronize such an environmentally friendly establishment.
Actually, in the Soviet Russia, the customer had to bring it’s own packages for many goods that was sold by the weight: fruits and vegetables, oil, sour cream, milk and so on. There was also no bags provided by the stores, so people was saving and washing the bags, cans and bottles for future use. So London is not just became more green but also more red.
We are getting our very own here in Austin, TX, USA. It’s in.gredients at http://in.gredients.com/ I can’t wait! BUT…in the photos above, I see several packaged goods…..appears to be wine and oils, etc. Hmmmm?!