MARTIN COOPER

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THE SHOP KEEPER

Words - Madeleine Ary Hahne Photos - Zoe Salt

This is no-waste shopping in 2042.

This supermarket has changed so much in 20 years. The potato you weigh in your hand, firm and cool, is so fresh from the field that loam still clings to its skin. The peaches nearby smell like summer. Much of the food is local, and more exotic goods are still on offer, though fewer than before.

A huge clock-like sign above the produce section shows when produce is in season, ensuring delicious decisions. No single-use plastic is involved in your grocery run. Instead, glass jars of spaghetti and dried apricots line the walls. But this isn’t remarkable, it’s just the way things are done now. Popular movements led to government incentives, and these incentives encouraged economies of scale. Local supply chains formed, along with a popular no-waste shopping culture. In twenty years, your kitchen rubbish shrunk from twice a week bins to twice a month.

Your ten-year-old daughter decants pasta into a glass jar with a distinctive SHHHHING. To her, this is just how shopping is done.

Meet Martin.

Martin hadn’t intended on running a refill shop.

But last year, when his industrial job of twenty years disappeared, he took the plunge. Neither he nor his wife came from a retail background, and refill shops are still uncommon in England. But Martin, inspired by Attenborough and Thunberg, knew it needed to happen and someone had to start. His wife, Sarah, came up with the idea for a refill store. In just one year, Martin already makes a small profit. Customers are keen and come in their droves.

But Martin knows he needs more competition,

“We’re trying to achieve climate change reversal. The only way to do that is through the mass migration of supermarkets to our style of store.”

This can only happen with many more entrepreneurs, supply-chain managers, grocers, and policy makers joining the fight. It’s doable. People shopped like this for hundreds of years. With a little work, we can do it again.