KOCHI: Green Store, an eco-friendly grocery store is a plastic-free zone, where customers have to bring their own containers to buy essential commodities. The store was a huge success when around 500 to 600 people from around the country contacted store owner Bittu John to enquire about setting up similar stores in many parts of the country. John was thinking about franchising his store when Covid-19 hit the state.
Even though he had to postpone the plans for starting the franchise indefinitely, John says Covid did not adversely affect business in his store. The number of walk-in customers reduced considerably during the peak period but home delivery saw a huge boom. John says that the number of customers actually increased in the post lockdown period.
“On an average, we get around 20-25 delivery orders now,” John says. But he feels that people’s purchasing patterns have changed due to Covid. “Customers who used to walk in and buy one or two things daily as per their need have now started to make monthly or weekly purchases.” Right now, 7 to 9 Green Store provides delivery across Ernakulam. But customers from nearby districts also come to the stores to buy groceries with their own containers. This he feels is because people themselves are really fed up with single-use plastics, as even cities do not have proper waste-management or waste-collecting systems.
It was in 2016, John, a Kothamangalam native got impressed by a zero-waste, no plastic store in London. Within one and half years, he started the 7 to 9 Green Store in Kolenchery. Setting up a plastic-free store was not an easy task for John. He had to import acrylic containers and dispensers from Germany, China, and the US as these were not available in India. Since his father already had a grocery store, he didn’t have to worry about the rent. But setting up everything to open the store and make it plastic-free took some time. What came as no surprise was the customer response. And in 2019, he set up the first no plastic green store in India.
Around fifty per cent of products in the store are organic. “Since they are more expensive, it’s not sustainable to run an organic-only store in Kerala.” The store also sells biodegradable washing solutions, cleaning products, fabric softeners etc. Organic shampoos, body washes, wooden toothbrushes, organic cooking oils are also some popular products along with essential groceries.
Now, there are many such stores coming up in major cities in the country. But John says that this is not enough to make a considerable impact in society. He is restarting his planning for a franchise business. He has imported containers from the US to start molding them and producing them locally and he hopes to start a store near Ernakulam within the next six months.