Fordingbridge community refill shop expanding to new premises

The store's only be running for a year, but wants to offer more products

Author: Faye TryhornPublished 11th Aug 2023

A community owned refill shop in Fordingbridge is set to move into bigger premises, after a first successful year of trading.

The Green Gram, which is currently based in Roman Quay, is relocating to the High Street in the autumn.

The store gives shoppers a chance to refill old containers with more foods, cleaning products and toiletries, helping to save plastics and money.

In the first year, the Green Gram says over 16,000 containers - or 372kg of plastics - have been prevented from going into landfill as a result.

Customers have bought up shares in the business to get it going, while the store itself is manned by volunteers.

Volunteers help to run the community-owned store, which has already outgrown its existing premises

Committee member Jo Anderson, says:

“We’re moving to new premises so we can offer more products, help more customers reduce their impact on the environment and save money too. We opened The Green Gram as a Community Benefit Society with a share offer, allowing members of the community to invest both physically and emotionally in the shop.

"We’ve now launched our second share open to existing and new members to help fund the move. Our first round of share funding went extremely well, and we are hoping that people will be able to give again and help us grow. With sustainability and the environment as a key focus and our motto of ‘Reuse, Refill and Repeat,’ we know our work makes a difference to our local community – as well as being more cost-effective than a throwaway society.”

Each share is £10, with a minimum purchase of one share and a maximum of 250 shares.

A proportion of profits from The Green Gram will be used to support local environmental and social projects through grants, which members can vote for at the Annual Members’ Meeting.

The store sells refills of cleaning products, toiletries and foods, with shoppers reusing containers to take them home

Jo Anderson said:

“Our goal is to raise £15,000 and the share offer is now open on our website - www.thegreengram.org - and closes at midnight on the 17th of September 2023."

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.