So every time I come to Birmingham to visit my family I always plan on doing some food shopping. It’s always good to make the most of trips away from home. This includes visiting Clean Kilo in central Birmingham. The shop offers verity of dry loose goods and some fresh veggies and spices you can put in your own container. It is definitely not the cheapest way to shop but it should not break your budget if you are looking into going plastic free or zero waste.

On regular bases I always like supplying myself with the following:

• Pasta
• Quinoa
• Rice
• Cereal
• Porridge
• Nuts and seeds
• Dried fruits
• Species
• Oil
• Washing up liquid

Other items they offer are cutlery and food storage pots, beauty products like soaps, rental floss and cleansers, cleaning liquids and pads, tea, coffee, sugar, four, milk, fresh cheese, fresh deserts and you can even make your own peanut butter 🙂 .

I believe that things like flour and sugar or anything packaged in paper is still quiet ok to get from supermarkets to keep the cost low. As for the beauty products I will do another post on that.

There is a verity of Asian or just general fresh food markets that offers great quantity of fresh foods for a good price. The only thing you have to look out for is fruit and veg freshness. With no use by date you have to judge what will last you longer. Buying your weekly suppliers in those can really help you cut down on a lot of single use plastic that is actually not recyclable, especially if you bring your own bags.

On this shopping journey I have finally found cucumbers that does not have the plants coating on top. I believe where you go in supermarkets and even general markets cucumbers are always in this plastic foil.

In the end I ended up spending £34 rounded up overall which is not to bad. As a single person this should last me partially 2 weeks.