Our Story
I'm Raichel, mother of two strapping lads (honestly, they tower over me) and owner of Replenish Refills: a Leicestershire-based, plastic-free mobile shop.
I established Replenish Refills in May 2021, after struggling to find somewhere locally that I could buy food without pesky plastic packaging!
I'd been trying to reduce my household's contribution to the plastic waste environmental problem for a few years. I'd made changes in the household products I buy, such as reusing bottles instead of recycling them, ditching cleaning wipes for compostable cloths, and switching to recyclable electric toothbrush heads. However, the main culprits for single-use plastic were hiding in my food cupboards.
After a bit of research, I discovered that in order to cut down on my food packaging, I would have to traipse into Leicester, Coventry, or Birmingham with my food containers to fill them up at a refill store, which I just didn't have the time to do. I realised then, that there must be others like me — trying to do the right thing to help our planet, but struggling to find the time to do it. And that is how Replenish Refills was born.
Essentially, Replenish Refills is a mobile shop, however, we stand at regular weekly and monthly locations as a market stall too. We are at Hinckley Market every Friday and Saturday, The Royal Oak at Kirby Muxloe every Wednesday, and the Sustainable Micro-Market at Kirkby Mallory on the the first Sunday of every month.
We also offer a Doorstep Refill Service too. Just book me and Katy the Van to turn up at your house, and we refill straight into your own containers.
My products are all sourced from ethical suppliers, and as much as possible they are delivered to me without any plastic packaging. Some of my suppliers also operate closed-loop systems, where I return all the packaging that their products arrive to me in, and they reuse it. How cool is that? What’s more, I don’t just sell food refills, I have a range of environmentally-friendly liquids and sustainable household products too.
I've also made an effort to stock products that are made locally, where possible — such as Fill's household liquids (based in Northampton) and St Martin's Coffee Roasters’ coffee beans (based in Leicester), Avocado Handmade’s reusable bowl covers and face pads (based in Loughborough) and La Zouch Soaps’ toilet bombs (handmade in Ashby de la Zouch). If you're new to refills, then take a look at how refill works to understand a bit more about it.