Bulk buy or refill stores are places you can buy all kinds of food like rice, suet, even soup mix – loose and unpackaged.
You take as much as you want/need from a larger container, weigh and pay.
You can usually use your own packaging.
The advantages for the #plasticfree shopper hardly need stating!
These are common in America and Australia, far less so in the U.K. But we do have some.
I have put together a list of stores that sell loose products, listed alphabetically by the location / place name.
If you know of others please add them, with as many details as possible, in the comments box below and I will incorperperate them.
Packaging
While these shops provide bags and they are almost always plastic ones. You will need to take your own plastic-free /reusable bags, tubs and bottles.
Tare
The weight of the container may make a difference at checkout. Some shops subtract the tare weight but other don’t. The tare weight is the weight of the empty container.
Latest Loose Food Shop
from Twitter
Popped to the fantastically named @weighahead in Dunblane, a new #zerowaste shop near #Stirling. Highlights were finding packaging-free bar soap and stocking up on staples without any single-use plastic. We’ll be back!
Jarfull Ltd
“Our shop all being well will be open sometime in the first couple of weeks of December. We will announce the confirmed date when we have done a little more decorating so please follow our social media pages to keep informed. “From their website
@jarfulluk
2 Bower Street, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG1 5BQ
Heard of one in Chapel Allerton. will be checking that out later.
A to Z of Refill Shops
A
Aberystwyth read more here
B
Barmouth Weigh & Save Travelled on to Barmouth on the Welsh coast. It was hot and sunny and the tourists were out in force. I don’t like it like that. I only stayed for the excellent weigh and save shop (read more about them here…) called the Weigh Out This sold (amongst other stuff), loose
- pasta
- powdered milk
- cystalised ginger
- cocoa
- roasted peanuts
- dried fruit
- sunflower seeds
- bran flakes
Barnsley
Market Got a loose lettuce pickled beetroot Cheese from the cheese stall shoes by Loake – British made
Weigh To Save
Visited Weigh To Save and yes they did loose cocoa. This stall has just recently opened at 1 Metropollian Centre May Day Green, Barnsley S70 1SX Closes 4:30PM 01226 772239 “Unique Market Stall selling a range of dried products, choose your amount & weigh to save.Products include, Nuts, Dried Fruit, Cereals, Rice, flours, sugars, other baking products, washing powder, herbs and spices all at reasonable prices. Helping to save the planet with no unnecessary packaging, you can even bring your own reusable containers. see for yourself in Barnsley’s inside market, Unit 13 Market parade(old semi open market under multi storey car park).” Photos diary of my visit here
Bath
KathrynH (https://secondhandtales.wordpress.com) had this to say “Just noticed that our Holland& Barrett store in Bath has some loose items (mostly nuts) but you can also buy, and then refill, bulk oils in glass jars. It’s quite a large store but wondered if other branches were doing the same?” Bath store – NewLeaf HealthFoods, 29 Shaftesbury Road, Bath, BA2 3LJ Happy to preweigh your container with what you are going to fill it with. Bulk bins of nuts, flour, sugar, grains, dried fruit and more. Loose herbs and spices. Ecover refills.
Blandford Forum
thanks for the add. I thought zero-wasters living in Dorset might be interested to know about my wholefoods store, Cariad Wholefoods, in Blandford Forum. We’re still quite new but sell lots of wholefoods, herbs, spices and botanicals loose. We also have a refill station for Bio-D cleaning products, loose soaps, etc. Everything we sell is ethically sourced, cruelty free and suitable for vegans and we are happy to take bulk orders and work with food co-operatives. It’s a growing business and my personal dream to sell as much as possible unpackaged over the coming months. Hope that some of you will visit 🙂 https://www.facebook.com/cariadwholefoods/
Bridlington
Weigh & Save
Brighton
HiSbe We’re an independent supermarket standing up for how it Should be. We help people cut down on plastic packaging by selling many items by weight, including fruit, veg, pasta, rice, sugar, lentils, cous cous, porridge oats and chocolate buttons! HiSbe Website Hello! My shop, Wastenot, is in Brighton and offers dried produce, loose organic fruit and veg, cleaning product and bathroom product refills as well as plastic free household and beauty items! My website is http://www.wasenotshop.com
Bristol
Bristol has a few: Scoop away- http://www.scoopawayhealthfoods.co.uk/ and Wild Oats – http://woats.co.uk/. Also worth mentioning if you’re a member of Bristol university or affiliated in any way there’s an amazing food co-op which is worth checking out: https://www.facebook.com/HungryCaterpillarCoop/?fref=ts
Brixam
Weigh & Save
Burley in Wharfedale “Waste Not The Grange, Station Road, Burley in Wharfedale, LS29 7ND, UK
do shampoo refills as well as lots of other stuff. more details here“
Buxton 18.1 Day Zero in Buxton. A great little family run refill shop. Very friendly and helpful in giving advice on how to make changes. Also responds to the customer to try and source plastic free products should there be a request for it.
C
Camarthen
“There’s the ‘green scoop’ in Camarthen
http://www.thegreenscoop.com
9 Hall Street, Carmarthen, SA31 1PH”
Cardiff
Cardiff- Ripple in Roath. Zero waste shop
Chichester
Chichester has Refilled Chichester at Drapers Yard, The Hornets. Drapers Yard also has other plastic free friendly shops including Zest for Taste which does oil and vinegar refills and Bear Boy Fresh with local organic veg and a milk refill station .
Cleethorpes
Spill the Beans St Peter’s Avenue #cleethorpes now have paper bags out as an alternative to plastic. If you’ve not been here PLEASE check if out! Loads of fab whole foods plus cereals Baking stuff and more #cleethorpes #discovernel #totallylocallyne
D
Dundee
Little Green Larder opened in Dundee today
E
Edinburgh
The new leaf co-op that offers a wide variety of stuff package free. Bulk stuff includes washing up liquid ontap, laundry liquid on tap, hair care, loads of spices, flour, müsli, beans & pulss, grains, rice, dred fruit, nuts, seeds, vinega, oil, soy sauce and much more. It’s an incredible place! They also have a very nice website where you can read all about them and their products. Here is a snippet “The New Leaf Co-op is collectively owned and managed by the people who work here, and we have chosen to put our principles right at the heart of our business.Our aim is 1simple: To offer affordable, healthy vegetarian wholefoods, with a focus on organic, locally sourced and fairtrade products, with as little packaging as possible. We carry more than 150 different lines of food and household products for customers to scoop and refill themselves, and our range is ever growing!”
Gin!!!!
To be truly plastic free, you may have to set up a still in the back garden! Unless you can get to one of these liquid delis.
Demijohn offer a spirits, liquor and other drinks refill service in
Edinburgh 32 Victoria Street Edinburgh EH1 2JW 0131 225 4090
Bloggers
Check out Scottish blogger Westywrites for Scottish based plastic freeness
Emsworth
in Hampshire – Pantry Weigh. Thanks to Emma for this info “There’s a small shop called Pantry Weigh in Emsworth in Hampshire https://www.yell.com/biz/pantry-weigh-emsworth-763392/
G
Glasgow
Many thanks to Lord Cut Grass for this Locavore in Glasgow is another one for your list. Grows and sells its own locally grown vegetables and can buy grains, rice, pasta, etc in your own container. 66 Nithsdale Road, Glasgow, G41 2AN http://glasgowlocavore.org/
Harvest Co-op is another place in Glasgow where you can bring your own containers to buy in bulk. 1143 Pollokshaws Road, Glasgow, G41 3YH http://www.harvestco-op.com/
Whole foods And there is always the Glasgow branch of Wholefoods. 124-134 Fenwick Rd, Giffnock, Glasgow G46 6XN, UK Do I sound excited? By a supermarket? Well yes I am. And the reason? This supermarket sells food loose and unpacked. I don’t just mean meat or vegetables (though that too) but nuts, spices and other dried commodities. The kind of stuff that usually comes swathed in plastic! They do a good range of rice, dried beans and pulses and more unusual stuff like blue popcorn, dried cherries and unroasted peanuts. Read more here See our Facebook Album here
H & I
Horsham!
A surprise discovery on a day trip to Horsham! Town & Country Weigh is at 7 East Street, Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 1HH. It has bulk food bins for rice (long grain, short grain, arborio, basmati), dried pulses (e.g. black eyed beans, chickpeas, butter beans, red lentils), flours (including rye flour and potato flour), milk powder, and a wide variety of muesli ingredients. Thanks to Kake for the above write up. Please, if anyone knows of any more, do add them to the list! Hull Heres a new one for the list Alans Naturally Health food/scoop and save shop 13 South Street Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, HU1 3QG Huddersfield List of shops and markets here
Hythe
in Kent I found another Loose Food shop called U Weigh in Hythe in Kent the address is 51 High Street Hythe, Kent, CT21 5AD Facebook address is https://www.facebook.com/uweigh What Are Refill Stores? Bulk buy or refill stores are places you can buy food loose.You take as much as you want/need from a larger container and you can usually use your own packaging.
J&K
Kingsbridge
Save A Packet: http://www.saveapacket.org.uk
8 The Anchor Centre, Bridge Street, Kingsbridge, TQ7 1SB
L
London Shops
Earth Natural Foods,
200 Kentish Town Road, London, NW5 2AE
Open 8.30am – 7pm, Monday to Saturday, closed Sundays. Great review on Refuge For Daffodils
And another from Laurie Pym
I went to Earth Natural Foods on Tuesday. Bought some loose herbs and will be headed back there to get coffee & more soon! Still no taring, and it was quite difficult to use my own containers as I hadn’t read the A Refuge for Daffodils review in advance. Foolish me brought heavier containers. However, I used the available kraft paper bags, which I labelled with the seed and /kg price (as they request). Once bought, I put all bags in a Kilner jar to keep them fresh. When I got home I gently opened the bags, which I will reuse when we need more herbs. smile emoticon It is a lovely, LOVELY shop, which I will continue to patronise!
Bumblebee Natural Foods
To see what loose foods they do read this great review by Kake of Croydon
Food For All
A blog worth keeping an eye on this month is Junk Free January as they try to live without packaging for a month. I am sure lots of useful info will be sourced. Already another loose fill shop has been found. The following is taken from the blog….
“The hero of the day was Food for All, on Cazenove Road next to Stoke Newington railway station. The last shop on my search, I was pretty glum by the time I got here, but cheered up right away. This small independent shop has a friendly atmosphere, good ethics, good prices, and a huge range of loose goods – all the herbs, spices and teas you can think of and more, meusli, different kinds of rice, lentils, etc. “
The Big Table
http://www.thebigtable.net/ 45 Chatsworth Rd, London E5 0LH
Mother Earth
https://www.facebook.com/MotherEarthLondon
282 St Pauls Rd / 5 Albion Parade / 101 Newington Green Rd
London, United Kingdom
Planet Organic Muswell Hill
http://www.planetorganic.com/unpackaged-at-planet-organic/
111/117 Muswell Hill Road, Muswell Hill
London
N10 3HS
Whole Foods Market
Whole Food Market – if we have to have supermarkets let them be like this….
Tooting
I just wanted to share with anyone else living in London (especially others in S / W London) that there are two sweet stalls/shops in Tooting Market- Get Juiced! (That sell vegan drinks, food and bulk products – they are also likely to go zero waste soon!) And Nuff Cosmetics that sells bulk cocoa butter , shea butter, natural unpackaged soaps etcetc. Really refreshing to find these two in this area!
Croydon – great write up by Kake who gives this shop a very good press
The rest
Leeds
read a review here.
Leicester
Leicester now has a zero waste shop https://zerowasteleicester.co.uk/
Lincoln
Gaia Wholefoods in Lincoln Central Market Lincoln, Lincolnshire 07891 370197 Nicola, the proprietor sells whole food that she bags up but is willing to weigh out into your own containers if you give her enough notice. Thanks to Not Quite A Vegan for that
M
Manchester Village Green Co-op
Prestwich Village Greens is a Community co-operative grocery in Prestwich with fresh, local, organic, affordable produce . For the plastic free amongst us it has some loose, self-service products in dispensers on the wall including Oats Muesli base Chia seeds Pumpkin seeds Hemp seeds Sunflower seeds Lentils Brown Rice I was pleased! Lentils and brown rice which have been off the menu until now. Yay! There was also paper wrapped butter and milk in glass bottles. Loose , organic veg including some unwrapped lettuce. Loose soaps, health care and Natura menstrual products. Plus some cocoa from Suma that I have to investigate. And really good fresh bread. They do Ecover refills you have to ask at the counter Well worth a visit. Check out the photo album on Facebook ![pastedGraphic_2.png]()
0
OXFORD
Welcome to SESI
We are Oxford’s longest serving refill station of food products and household detergents.
SESI has its own range of laundry and household detergents which create no packaging waste from factory to consumer. They are also effective cleaners, environmental and cheap. We also offer refills of some well known products from Bio-D, Ecover and Faith in Nature.
The SESI food depot offers a growing range of fairtrade, organic and local foods.
We exist to help you minimise packaging waste and access the best products at a reasonable price. We reduce packaging by encouraging customers to bring their bags, bottles and tubs for refill at our depot or at our farmers market stall.
All 250 refills and food/household products we hold as depot stock are available to order through this website. You can download a catalogue of 5000 more! For tips on how to get the best out of this website go to ‘More About Ordering’.Please note we don’t take payment when you place an order – pay us on delivery or collection. We accept cash, cheque or you can now pay by card.
P
Plymouth
Ethica: http://www.facebook.com/EthicaVeganStore/
155 Armada Way, Plymouth, PL1 1HY
Refills for detergent, shampoo, washing up liquid etc; soap bars, non-plastic toiletries, cleaning items
Blog post includes trip to Ethica https://ourrubbishblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/07/a-clean-break/
Peterborough
Backyard Food in Peterborough is an ethical shop looking to enhance the availability of local, organic, fairtrade, vegan, plastic-free products. It stocks food, household products and toiletries as refills. Recently re-launched, they plan to expand their current range of refills – https://www.facebook.com/backyardfoodpeterborough
Penzance
15B Causewayhead
Penzance
Cornwall TR18 2SN
One of the incredibly eccentric loose food outlets that can occasionally be found huddled under the idiosyncratic Weigh and Save umbrella. You can read more about them here…
This is a good one selling all manner of loose food stuffs. I stocked up on
- raisins,
- sunflower seeds
- dried apricots
- brown rice
- COCOA!!!
Blog post about our visit to ‘Save A Packet’ and ‘Weigh Inn’ (Penzance) https://ourrubbishblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/03/the-incredible-bulk-stores/
R
Ramsbottom
Fulfilled: Plastic free shop
@FulfilledShop
Ramsbottom plastic free/zero waste food & household shop. now open! North West, England
S
Sheffield We are OPEN!!
Come along and check out our huge range of spices, refills of cleaning products, household items and plastic free wholefoods- we’re open until 6pm today! link here
Southampton
Jen @choose_to_reuse says Got some bulk dry food today from @RiceUpLtd – a #zerowaste haven! #choosetoreuse
Rice Up Wholefoods @RiceUpLtd We are an ethical (Vegan, GM Free, Eco/Organic friendly) mini supermarket. We are run as a Workers Coop. Open 10am-6.30pm (5.30pm Sat and closed Sunday)
T
Thatcham
Can you please add Thatcham Refillable to the list. We are in Thatcham near Newbury in Berkshire.
http://www.thatchamrefillable.co.uk
We sell refill household cleaning & personal care products daily and we hold a monthly market where we have stall holders selling dried food and other eco products from our shop.
Tiverton
Todmorden
Totnes
W
Plastic Free Places that start with the letter W can be found here
Including
Watford
Wimborne
Winscombe
Worcester
XYZ
York
A to Z
Pain Au Chocolat - home bake Pain Au Raisen - Home Bake Yorkshire Puds Fruits of the forest and other soft fruits Roast veg - peppers to potatoes Uncooked Vegetables ...
Read More
Lidles is a chain of budget supermarkets. It offers some plastic free surprises. (Click the links to see a review and other options). Take your own bags Lidl Stiftung & ...
Read More
Vegetable oil is difficult to source plastic free. Buy in glass and the metal caps will have a little plasticized disc or plastic liner on inside and maybe a plastic seal ...
Read More
Here are some independent Tea & Coffe merchants. You may need to take your own bags Leeds The Teapot has coffee beans and leaf tea from all round the world. Really lovely ...
Read More
Loose pet food, home wares and some loose sweets. Being committed to local shopping, I prefer to buy that way whenever possible. I would encourage you to do the same ...
Read More
Long time ago when I was young we used to visit the Weigh & Save shop in the precinct down the road. In it were a number of big bins ...
Read More
U.K. Wide
.
Other Supermarkets & Chainstores
Sometimes supermarkets can surprise you – check out the plastic-free and reduced packaging products here.
Remember
While these shops provide bags and they are almost always plastic ones. You will need to take your own.
Find A Milk Delivery Service With Glass Bottles
Here
Online
This is an interesting option that allows you to buy basic foods on line plastic free.
You can even use your own produce bags. Read more
HERE
Ask A Local
A great source of info is the Plastic Is Rubbish FB support group. We have people everywhere who,are ready to help. Join up join in.
Please add any shops you know of in the comments below and I will incorporate them into the post.
Links to reviews particularly welcome.
SaveSave
SaveSave
Great images were 
Then there is littering thats not considered littering. Because these products are labelled disposable there is the assumption that they are safe to throw them away. Because they often mimic products which are genuinely biodegradable it is easy to understand why people get confused. What could be more biodegradable than a teabag. Paper and leaves. But the paper contains plastic that will live for ever in your compost heap.
