Refill Room offers more sustainable shopping

A new business which will help Bridgnorth to become a ‘greener’ town has been launched. Sam Amery has opened The Bridgnorth Refill Room, in Cartway, to offer people a more sustainable way of shopping.

“I stock a wide range of cleaning products, toiletries and food such as cereals and pulses, dried tea and coffee and pet food, all available for customers to fill their own containers with,” said Sam, who has run coffee and ice cream shop Giovanni’s in the town for nine years. "The products are sourced from ethical, eco friendly suppliers and where possible are local, organic and vegan.”

She said that during the lockdown, she decided to just operate Giovannis as a take-out and use the seating space in another way.

“Like many others, I am taking on board that we need to do something to reduce waste and single use plastics and because I couldn’t get refills easily on products that I used in my business and at home, I decided to open the shop. This is so important for future generations and is just a small nod to what we have to do, but we have to start somewhere." 

She turned to Bridgnorth business consultants Good2Great when she was investigating the feasibility of her new venture.

“I knew Good2Great had been very successful supporting many new start ups in Bridgnorth, and although I have over 20 years experience of running a business, it was my first venture into retail and a long time since I had launched something from scratch.

“I attended a Good2Great start-up masterclass which gave me the confidence and reinforcement needed to define and refine my vision. What was really useful was talking to other start-ups going through this unique time. It is very easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day running of your own business and forget how useful it is to get an outside perspective of what you want to do and to network.”

Sally Themans, who is the start-up specialist at Good2Great and also runs Love Bridgnorth, said that The Refill Room was an important addition to the town's retail offer.

“It’s great to see another new shop opening in the town as it bounces back after lockdown, and especially pleasing to see one which helps us to become more sustainable.”

Good2Great is currently running an on-going eight week start-up masterclass via Zoom every Wednesday morning and has been doing so throughout the COVID lockdown. Participants are invited to join up at any time as the modules are all stand-alone and cover branding and communication; understanding business finance; marketing; goal setting and time management, as well as legal considerations.

Good2Great also offers free places at its start-up bootcamps which are two hour sessions covering the basics of starting a business, run on Zoom.