Club Meeting

Sue Duma (President Elect) introduced our speakers, Sarah and Martin Cooper, from the Refill Shop of Ikigai in St Ives.

Martin started with a bit of background.  

He and Sarah had become very concerned about the overuse of plastic in our shops and its effect on the environment.  He had been an engineer for 20 years, but was made redundant in 2020 and, with Covid raging, there was little opportunity to get back into the industry.  It was a nudge to change path!  He had never been in retail, but he had an urge to offer alternatives to plastic and fate took a hand – there was a little shop available on White Hart Lane in St Ives at the right price and he and Sarah took it over in late December 2020.  They were stripping out the old fixtures and fittings on Christmas Eve!  They wanted the shop to be as sustainable as possible and even recycled the waste from the walls they stripped out.  All the furniture was also recycled.

Sarah spoke about their trip to Japan in 2018, which was mesmerising – the ethos of the country was inspiring, and it was so clean. “Ikigai” is a philosophy of finding happiness through finding your purpose in life, and the shop is their “Ikigai”, and they hope it will be a step on the path to “Ikigai” for their customers.

When they first opened, during Covid, there were a lot of local suppliers, as people worked from home and diversified their interests.  However, their suppliers are now more widespread, as some locals have stopped producing eco-friendly products and gone back to more mainstream employment.  The shop is plastic free, with even the wraps for their sandwiches being an alternative to plastic.

Their foodstuffs are 60% organic, which is much better for the planet, and Martin talked about all the damage chemicals do to the soil. They know they can’t compete with the supermarkets, but they can offer an alternative.  A nice example was that their loyalty cards are made from seed paper and when it has been cashed in, can be planted to provide wildflowers!  Sarah also noted that a good proportion of those cashing in loyalty cards donated the proceeds to the shop’s charity of the month – well done, St Ives!  The idea with many products is to bring in your own container and refill it, thus paying by weight for what you need.  You can buy in very small quantities, and you only have to buy what you need, not the entire contents of a package - which results in waste when you throw away what you don’t use.  They even have a “circle of economy” with one supplier, who brings in his products and takes away the empty containers to reuse.  We cannot avoid plastic completely, but we can reuse it!

Martin had been prompted to say how they were doing – he summed it up as “doing all right”.  They were still in business 18 months down the line, when lots of shops were failing.  He believes the business works because they have a good balance of products.  He was also proud that the shop had won the “Cambridgeshire Live” Environmental Hero Award – although the plaque was made of plastic! 

Sarah told us that in the 18 months they had been in business, they had calculated that they had saved 24,000 pieces of plastic.  It’s a little shop in a little town – think what we might achieve on a national, or global, scale!  It is also a misconception that they are expensive, as you only pay for what you want and, once you factor in wastage, a lot of supermarket products are more expensive for what you actually use.  Go and have a look!