Original Unverpackt

Three years ago, I featured a story about in.gredients, America’s first zero-waste, package-free micro grocery store, which sells local food and fresh ingredients. Since plastic waste from food packaging is an issue close to my heart, I’m so happy that a zero-waste grocery store has opened in Berlin, Germany. Called Original Unverpackt, it’s a German concept store selling groceries without the packaging.

It works like this. You bring your own containers and have those weighed. Berlin-based supermarket Original Unverpackt labels your containers. You shop. When you get to the till, the weight of your containers is subtracted and you pay for the net weight of your groceries. The label is designed to survive a few washings so you can come back and skip the weighing process for a while.

Founders Sara Wolf and Milena Glimbovski say there’s a rising demand for products and services that deal with sustainability and that people demand alternatives to the “lavish” handling of our resources.

“Here, the customer only takes what they need,” says Wolf and Glimbovski ahead of the launch of their Berlin-Kreuzberg shop. “We’d like to offer an alternative way of shopping – one where we offer everything you need but you won’t find hundreds of different types of body lotion or olive oil.”

Watch founders Sara Wolf and Milena Glimbovski explain how Unverpackt works.

View their site, translated from German to English.