We got our small biz besties @the_bottlehouse to recommend the best booze to put in our Christmas Cake packs 🤗💚
You can order our cake packs right up until we close on Sunday 22nd Dec 🌟
We also love adding extras from here into our hampers. A jar of our Chilli Rice Crackers goes a treat with a brew or two!
Why not get some delicious wine or cider to go with our mulled spice jars?
Buying from indie business says thoughtful like nothing else 💫
#leightonbuzzard #bedfordshire #buckinghamshire #miltonkeynes #shoplocal #supportindependent #supportyourlocal #aylesbury
Look what’s arrived! Just in time for Christmas… Sustainable festive tape.
We were supposed to have these a month ago but RoyalMail lost our parcel. Big thanks to @andkeepshopping for being amazing at sorting this out for us.
Christmas is such a wasteful time of year sadly. From food to packaging. We absolutely recommend reusing paper where possible. Even getting creative with newspaper. Or wrapping presents in fabric. But if you fancy adding some festive flare to your reusables, our sustainable tape is a lovely touch.
£5.50 each. And we only have five rolls of each print!
These paper tapes are made from premier 60gsm paper (high percentage recycled), printed with red and white eco inks and available in 4 cheerful festive patterns. It is easy to tear, strong and instantly sticks to smooth or uneven surfaces.
Paper tape is an eco-friendly alternative to plastic tape, it is self adhesive and made from renewable kraft paper. It is water and solvent resistant, and acid free.
#sustainability #reusable #greenchristmas #sustainablepackaging #leightonbuzzard #buckinghamshire #bedfordshire #miltonkeynes #sustainableliving #ecofriendly #aylesbury
We’re bringing back a new curry dal mix 🤩 Do you know what spices these are? Guess correctly and you could get a free bag on us!
Kits available in store tomorrow. Pre-bagged ready to go with a recipe card for £5.
Bored of banana bread? Why not make ice cream instead?!
We had a bunch of over ripe bananas and the idea of baking in this heat felt gross.
Instead…
👉 I peeled and sliced them into discs, put them on a tray in the freezer and let them freeze over night.
👉 Next day, scraped them off the tray into the blender (using a spatula 😂)
👉 Added a splash of oat milk.. maybe about 1 tbsp, and two tsp of maple syrup. (Both sourced from @therefill.leightonbuzzard of course !)
👉 Blitzed it in the blender and it goes all creamy. Yum!
You could add other ingredients too to get more flavours like a spoonful of cocoa powder, or peanut butter! Or some of our strawberry syrup.
It’s crazy how easy it is to make a no waste, low cost, non dairy treat. 🤤
ON BUILDING COMMUNITY SPACE
I moved the shop round again… almost for the last time… maybe. It’s all part of the bigger vision of The Refill.
A big part of The Refill dream is how as a business we can be a space for positive change, not just consuming.
Living a sustainable life is about creating and engaging community. When we have stronger community, we feel happier. We also feel more empowered.
I always love how people connect in this shop: sharing recipe ideas or recommendations; making friends and starting projects. I want to make more space for it.
For the summer holidays, we’ve made it more kid friendly. We love kids getting involved in refills but we know it’s also easier when they have somewhere to sit and colour sometimes.
Longer term we want you to use it for workshops and talks and community meetings.
It’ll also be somewhere to sit and get a hot drink, and we’re really hoping to stock @cinnamonpantry incredible vegan cinnamon buns soon 😍
#communitybuilding #activehope #greenfuture #refillshop #sustainableliving
👀 Have you met our new scales yet? Let me show you how they work! We promise you’ll love them and they’re easy to use once you get the hang of it.
👋 Say goodbye to those pesky, smudgy pens. They did the job to start with but as we’ve got busier they’ve been an increasing problem. Weights get smudged off. Numbers get written weird ways. Humans be humans and make mistakes. We also found we were going through them quickly with lids being left off and ends being damaged - when they aren’t recyclable or easily disposed of, they no longer felt the most sustainable option.
🌟 Our new scales print paper labels. It’s not perfect but most recycling plants can handle them easily so they have a second life.
💡 Our top tips for using them:
1) Bring empty containers and keep the container label on it. You won’t need to reweigh it again a second time. Emptying out any old bits before you come also means you’re keeping it fresh!
2) If you stick it on the lid you can still put your container through the dishwasher.
3) Don’t like the look of the label? Stick it on the bottom or on the inside of the lid. As long as we have the barcode it’s fine.
4) If you’re not sure - ask us! Just because it’s a new machine doesn’t mean we’re going all automated.
Drop any questions in the comments! We want you to feel as confident and comfortable as possible with your refills.
Something exciting for you 👀🤭
New customers wanted!
We have 300 people choosing to shop with us each week.
Our customers keep coming back again and again too. And we love getting to know them. But we love seeing more people getting on board with the refill way of life. It’s a habit change for sure. And sometimes it can feel a bit intimidating.
If they love us, we bet you will too! If you’ve got any questions about who we are, how it works, what we do: just let us know.
Or why not pop in this week and see what all the fuss is about.
We’re open: Tues - Fri 9am - 4pm, and Saturday 9am - 5pm
Super quick and easy meal, packing a lot of flavour! (And cheaper than traditional pesto - even we know pine nuts are 💸💸💸 right now!!)
I love experimenting with cooking, especially when we maybe over ordered a product in the shop… peanuts. We have way too many peanuts because our peanut butter machine is very fussy with what it likes to grind 🙄
So when we got Seasonal Wild Garlic and Organic Mushrooms in our box from @sandylanefarm this week, it was the perfect opportunity to try a twist on pesto. Switching out pine nuts for dark roast peanuts! And the flavour is divine. The dark roast peanuts add a real depth to this dish.
For the pesto: blitz the wild garlic until it’s pretty much chopped down, then add your cheese and blitz again. Then add your nuts and a tablespoon of oil. Blitz again, and add oil until you have your preferred consistency. I like to add a bit of water too to get a smoother sauce. Add some lemon juice and smoked sea salt for extra flavour excitement.
Then the mushrooms you want to keep chunky. Frying in a little bit of oil. Coating them in oregano and thyme from @organicherbtrading
I had odd bits of pasta left (not having done my own refills 😂) so this is a mix of @yorkshirepasta Maniche and our wholewheat fusilli.
Cost break down for The Refill ingredients for four people:
Pasta: £1.20
Peanuts: £0.40
Oil: £0.75
Oregano: £0.08
Thyme: £0.07
Smoked Salt: £0.20
Approx: £2.60 total 💚
Let us know if you give it a go!
🤔 “We don’t normally see you in here”
😅 I’ve heard that quite a lot since I’ve been back in the shop these last two weeks
🤯 The truth is I’ve been working another job alongside running the business for the last 15 months. It was a bit mad, and I definitely didn’t realise how much stress I’ve been carrying around until these last two weeks. But I had to do it. Running a small business is TOUGH (but amazing). And the financial stress I was under at the end of 2022 had me wondering if The Refill could continue.
🥳 But as of two weeks ago, I’m back in my business full time!
Our new space is paying off. But we’ve still got a lot of work to do to get more customers in the doors.
Working an office job only made me realise how running The Refill is the only place I want to be. Running a business is always a challenge; it’s also so rewarding. And one of the things I’ve been loving the most being back is seeing the direct customer impact this shop has 🥰
I’m also so grateful to the team that has been working in the shop and keeping everything going whilst I juggled it all. 💚
DON’T SOAK YOUR LABELS!! Here’s what to do instead…
We thought this sherry bottle needed a second life as an Olive Oil bottle with it’s cork stop. Getting the label off is never fun and we know a lot of you struggle with it when donating jars. DON’T SOAK THEM!! Getting those labels wet as a first step is actually one of the worst things you can do because it melts the paper and glue together, making it harder to remove off of the glass. You’re then left trying to scrape off sticky clumps eww.
Our top tip: FILL YOUR BOTTLE/JAR WITH HOT WATER. The hot water heats up the glass and melts the glue only. More often than not the label will just peel off the glass. It occasionally leaves a sticky resides which you can then sprinkle some bicarbonate and on and leave it to soak in vinegar 🛁
Then give them a wash in the dishwasher and either re-use them, or drop them down to us 💚
Did you know a glass is 100% recyclable and can be recycled infinitely? But it also takes A LOT of energy to make and recycle! So reuse it as many times as you can before throwing it out to make it as earth loving as possible 😘
#leightonbuzzard #leightonbuzzardlocal #bedfordshire #buckinghamshire #ecocleaning #greencleaning #reuse #miltonkeynes #sustainableliving #therefill #refillshop #springclean
