A life not wasted — waste-free shopping
Last year’s start-up prize winner for Munich and the first of its kind in the city is OHNE — or “without” in English — a supermarket entirely clear of any wasteful packaging. The founders were inspired by the book “Zero Waste Home” and its following movement in the US, written by Bea Johnson who has since visited the shop after its opening. The idea is simple: live a waste-free life, one less useless plastic wrapper at a time.
My dad always told me when I would beg for those silly one-gulp sized Actimel drinks as a kid “we are paying for the packaging more than for the actual yoghurt drink inside” — and while this might not be entirely correct — he did have a point. When we go out to buy groceries, so many of them have custom made wrappers and containers that offer no other effect than to look good or to preserve them from unnecessarily long transportation or storage. In OHNE, all the produce is local and fresh, even the Gin is from the Duke distillery from across the road.
So how does it work? As simple as the idea itself: you bring empty containers you find fit, and fill in the amount you need, be that salt, milk, noodles, cosmetics, washing detergent, or cornflakes. The concept is vegetarian, so except for meats you’ll pretty much find all your organic veg in here as well — in this case odd-shaped ones from the Munich-based startup ‘Etepetete’ which have been cast away because boring people might not find them aesthetically pleasing. Silly stuff.
Price-range wise the 350+ product assortment does exceed everyday-supermarkets, but in comparison to other organic food stores they position themselves pretty average. In any case the question should still be why these supermarkets are our ‘everyday’. With the greatly successful crowdfunding campaign OHNE achieved before its launch the market for packaging-free supermarkets is wide open, and some competition could definitely help normalise the prices and experience. However, currently being able to measure out your consumption by the centimeter already paves the way for less spending and waste!
And finally some advice from one of the co-founders Hannah Sartin “Don’t think about it all the time”. In other words: the easiest way to live a waste-free life is to just do it. It’s much easier than it seems.
OHNE — Der Verpackungsfreie Supermarkt
Schellingstraße 42, 80799 München, Germany
Open: 9.30AM — 7PM all days except for Sundays
