A plastic-free supermarket where customers bring their own containers is aiming to launch a delivery service.
The Clean Kilo in Birmingham uses gravity dispensers to dole out produce directly into customers' own jars or pots, or into paper bags. The shop has been open in Birmingham's Digbeth since June last year, selling locally grown vegetables, cereals, pasta, herbs, coffee and bread among other things, but no meat.
Now co-founders Jeanette Wong and Tom Pell want to sell online through Clean Kilo's website and begin a local delivery service using bicycles later this year. The business is also looking for a site for its second shop in Birmingham after winning a £20,000 Fedex small business grant in January.
Unlike the produce in stores, deliveries will be packaged, but only using paper and cardboard, according to Wong. "We'll use minimal packaging," she said. "We'll put the items in paper and cardboard boxes but not have all the plastic or polystyrene bits."
Clean Kilo has already begun selling online but only for click and collect, and not through its own website. Orders are placed on the Open Food Network, an open source food distribution website, and collected either at Clean Kilo or in Lichfield from the Mercia Food Hub, an online farms market, broadening Clean Kilo's reach. The click and collect service was launched earlier this month and also uses cardboard and paper packaging.
"When we do the e-commerce properly, on our website, click and collect and delivery will be there," said Wong. "That's something we're working on towards the end of the year. What we'd like to do is some kind of cycle delivery service within a radius of our shop."
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