Ripple living

Ripple is Cardiff’s first zero waste shop, exhibiting a whole host of help yourself loose foods, spices and household necessities. If you’re looking to learn a little more about the shop on Albany road, there have been lots of coverage of it over the last few weeks. It opened in November 2018 and is located at the bottom of Albany road (in Cardiff), near the church. Apparently it’s been so popular people have even complained that it gets too busy!

I’ve been following Ripple on Instagram for a while, and have wanted to visit but didn’t get round to it. Everything in the store is sustainable, organic or natural. The store boasts an amazing concept of which promotes zero waste and lets you self serve during the whole experience (apart from paying). The winner for me was the peanut butter machine, but i’ll get onto that later on.

How it works

1. Bring your own

Its advised by the owners to bring your own containers to the store, that way you’re helping to create zero waste. So this is what I did. You can take along any sort of container you like, any sort of jar, bottle or anything really as long as it has got a lid. If you don’t bring enough or if you forget to bring something with you then they do sell containers there that you can buy for a small price. I noticed some of the jars were around 60p for a small glass jar which I thought was a good price. There are also plenty of paper bags dotted around the place too.

2. Weigh beforehand

Before you start going crazy and filling up containers you need to approach the scales and weigh your containers. This doesn’t cost anything and it’s basically just a tool to weigh your container, so that the machine knows how heavy it is after its also full of food. Once it has been weighed you print a label with a barcode and stick it on your container.

3. The fun part

The next step of the Ripple experience is to fill your pre-weighed and stickered up containers. Its really easy to do so, and you literally just have to pull the handle down. Everything is labelled with the price per 100g and also what the item is (of course). I only saw people filling their containers with one type of item. You’re not supposed to mix them up because then I’m assuming it would be almost impossible to work out the price afterwards?

4. Back to the scales

Once you have filled your container up its time to weigh it again. You place your filled container onto the scales and select ‘would like to weigh food’ (or whatever is says!) and then you scan the first label that you printed out earlier. This barcode registers on the system and it brings up the weight that was logged earlier on. It removes this weight from the weight of your contents and then you can print off your new sticker. This will include the price you will pay. It will look like this…

Its such a great concept and I couldn’t get over how cute the whole shop was. There is such a variety of products that you can buy too. From stainless steel straws and instruments to clean them, to vegan leather food pouches, clothes, bags and cards.

The Peanut Butter machine

After scrolling through Ripple’s instagram account I noticed the peanut butter machine. They crowd funded the money to be able to purchase this extremely expensive thing, but I’m sure it was worth it. Its so easy to use, you pull the lever on the machine, and you can hear the nuts being grounded while you wait for the peanut butter to melt into your container like ice cream. It’s amazing, and a very cheap way of buying peanut butter as well. For someone like me who likes it but doesn’t have it very often, its a great way to purchase a small amount that’s as natural as possible. And healthier too!

What I bought

On my very first visit, I picked up just a few things:

Chopped dates, pumpkin seeds, halved pecans and peanut butter. I have since been back several timed and now purchase a variety of things to mix together for my breakfast each morning.

It’s a really great shop located in the bustling Roath area, there is so much more on offer than food too. Take a look at the pictures below.

I’d really encourage everyone in the area to pay Ripple a visit, it’s a fun shopping experience, but it’s also helping us all learn a little more about the importance of recycling and how easy it can be.

Have you been to Ripple? What did you think?

Zero waste ( or seriously cutting down on waste) is definitely the way forward!

Find out more about ripple here:

https://www.rippleliving.co.uk