First I visited Ecotopia which is in the Central Arcade off Briggate. It opened in October 2018. The shop is stocked with food items like pasta, lentils and spices, as well as toiletries, cleaning products, baked goods, as well as shelves which stock jars and pots to use instead of plastics. The food items are stored in jars, and the premise is that people help themselves to the food using the measurements they need and then only pay for the product they have. This reduces plastic waste by eliminating single use plastics as well as reduced food waste due to customers only buying what they need.
The shop itself is very clean and welcoming and the staff were also friendly too. When I visited there were a few customers already in the shop and more came in whilst I was in there too, showing that the shop is not unknown. Around the shop were signs telling customers about how the concept works, as well as advertisements for related non plastic products. The shop also had a food icon key showing that the foods could be gluten free organic, vegetarian, vegan or allergen free - this is good as the foods have no packaging stating this.
The shop also had a recycling station where you could drop off biscuit, cake and cracker wrappers into the box and a company would come and pick these up. This idea was good as they would otherwise be thrown away into landfill so having this station at extra expense to the store is handy for people who want to recycle more and be more conscious.
Whilst in the centre I also visited the Jar Tree, which is in Kirkgate market. This was Leeds first zero waste store and whilst not as big as Ecotopia is probably more well known. The store works the same as Ecotopia with the weigh and pay premise.
Both of these stores have a wide range of products, The Jar Tree lists them on their website while Ecotopia does not have that feature yet. Both stores also welcome suggestions from customers about how to expand their product ranges.
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