While the anti-waste law provides for the end of single-use plastic packaging by 2040, a couple of entrepreneurs have just inaugurated the very first so-called zero waste supermarket on the outskirts of Toulouse. Only bulk items and glass jars are used to package everyday foods.
The cardboard to wrap your favorite vanilla yogurts, the tray to store the pork tenderloin, the cellophane paper to wrap the Brie de Meaux… In a supermarket, packaging is everywhere! Except at Super Tout Nu, this is the original name of a brand new supermarket, located in Labège, on the outskirts of Toulouse, which is betting on zero waste. According to Salomé Géraud, the co-director at the head of this project with her husband Pierre, more than 90% of the products are packaged in glass jars. But there is also bulk.
A catering service, a butcher’s shop, a creamery, fruits and vegetables… Several hundred references fill the shelves of this supermarket which aims to be that of the future, in the words of the owner, interviewed on Europe Bleu Occitanie on 26 last March, on the occasion of the store’s inauguration.
60% of the products sold in glass jars were sourced within a hundred kilometer radius of the supermarket. A detail which is not one for consumers since this criterion allows them to hope to pay less for their items. It is true that foods sold in bulk are often expensive in traditional mass distribution, which is quite the opposite at Super Tout Nu, according to Salomé Géraud, thanks to the use of short circuits and the establishment of a circular economy.
Generally speaking, the entrepreneur ensures prices 10% to 40% cheaper “for equivalent quality”. Better still, we can even earn money thanks to the introduction of the principle of reverse deposits. This involves not paying for the containers, in this case the glass jars, but getting ten cents each time you bring them back to the store.
Initially, the brand only concerned a drive-through that the couple launched in 2018 in Toulouse and its outskirts, but also in Bordeaux and Lille. Every week, the Tout Nu drive receives around 250 orders for an average basket of around 70 euros.
