Plastic free pop-up shop comes to Banbury

Residents of Banbury will be able to join the fight against plastic pollution next month with the help of SCOOP zero-waste, a new plastic-free pop-up shop taking place in White Lion Walk's Neva Culinary Affairs.
Katie-Louise Herring, SCOOPKatie-Louise Herring, SCOOP
Katie-Louise Herring, SCOOP

Run by passionate zero-waster Katie-Louise Herring, SCOOP zero-waste offers customers packaging and plastic-free goods such as organic rice, pasta, nuts, loose leaf tea, toothpaste and even toilet roll.

Visitors to the pop-up are encouraged to bring their own, clean tubs, bags, bottles and pots to be refilled with the items they need preventing new plastic packaging from being created and thrown-away polluting our environment.

Katie said: "I just got so fed up with having to buy everything in plastic when it’s being made increasingly clear the damage it’s doing to our environment. When you visit the supermarkets it’s incredibly hard to just get vegetables without plastic let alone things like pasta, rice and tea.

Katie-Louise Herring, SCOOPKatie-Louise Herring, SCOOP
Katie-Louise Herring, SCOOP

"Even things that appear to come in paper usually have hidden plastic in them. It’s so frustrating."

Katie has learnt to make bread, beer and grow her own vegetables to cut down on waste, decided to set up the business in July 2018 because there was nothing like it in the area.

Additional inspiration came after Katie worked for her local veg co-operative Cultivate, selling plastic-free, locally grown fruit and vegetables at markets around Oxford.

This led her to discover SESI Refills, a social enterprise run by husband and wife Rina Melendez and Paul Godden which sells packaging-free foods and detergent refills but only at their market stall in East Oxford.

Neva KipNeva Kip
Neva Kip

After Katie helped set up some SESI detergent refills at The Mix in Wantage last year, the wider community expressed a demand for food refills and so SCOOP zero-waste was born.

Since then SCOOP zero-waste has been popping up in venues across Oxfordshire and will now be partnering with Neva Culinary Affairs to offer people in Banbury a plastic-free shopping experience.

On Sunday, May 19 between 11am and 3pm, SCOOP zero-waste will offer over 30 different dried products including locally produced Jeeves and Jericho tea, organic pasta, nuts, dried fruits and rice and Neva Culinary Affairs will be offering some extra special foodsprepared in their Kitchen.

Neva Kip, chef and owner, said: “Neva Culinary Affairs are proud to offer a 'good food' experience to all the Banbury people. I’m really pleased to be partnering with SCOOP and to be able to offer people in Banbury a chance to shop plastic free.

"At NCA we are passionate about creating food that is fair for the producer, inspiring for the cook, delicious and healthy for the guest. It is with this ethos in mind that we were keen to

partner with Katie as not only are her products all of these things but they help our customers reduce their impact on the planet.

She adds: We’ll be complimenting the event by cooking up some special treats for shoppers on the day to help inspire and delight the taste-buds.”

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