A New Pembroke Dock shop is having its official opening today (Friday, October 28) at 2pm by Mayor Cllr Pamela George. Based at St Govans Shopping Centre in Pembroke Dock, Pembrokeshire REFILL offers affordable, high quality, sustainably sourced produce and sell straight from dispensers – minus the unnecessary and wasteful packaging surrounding almost every product found in a conventional supermarket.

The shop has been designed by the team at Pembrokeshire FRAME with almost entirely repurposed materials. Their industrious efforts have produced a fresh and distinctive new shop which is now home to Pembrokeshire Refill and the new Pembroke Dock Community Fridge - two equally fresh and distinctive projects. These exciting and much needed ventures share the common goal of reducing waste, whilst providing supported training and work opportunities for individuals with learning disabilities and or mental health issues.

FRAME is delighted to have received a £25,000 grant from The Sustainable Development Fund managed by Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority towards the setting up costs of Pembrokeshire Refill. They are also grateful to players of the National Lottery for £10,000 funding received from The National Lottery Community Fund towards the salary of a Pembrokeshire Refill Manager.

Pembrokeshire REFILL has been designed to make sustainable shopping easy for you. Simply grab your empty containers, weigh and fill! If you happen to drop in while you’re passing, or forget your containers, it’s not a problem - the shop has recyclable, compostable and biodegradable paper bags you can buy as well as many clean repurposed containers that are free to a good home.

By shopping at Pembrokeshire Refill you can:

• reduce pointless and single use packaging – the planet, it’s wildlife (as well as the person in your household responsible for sorting the recycling each week) will thank you for it!

• save money, as you won’t have to pay for the unnecessary packaging which amounts to approx. a fifth to your shopping bill.

• combat food waste because you can buy as much or as little as you need, (also meaning you can try new ingredients without having to buy more than you need – yet another way to save money).

• get fresh ingredients, like fresh local roasted coffee beans,

• eat more organic and sustainable ingredients avoiding consuming toxic chemicals.

• stock up on environmentally-friendly cleaning and personal care products.

Last year, Haverfordwest Community Fridge helped to prevent over 46 tons of surplus food from going to waste and enabled over 18,000 people to taste what combating food waste tasted like. In their growing effort to tackle unnecessary food waste and household food insecurities, Pembrokeshire FRAME is delighted to bring its second Community Fridge to Pembroke Dock.

FRAME would like to thank Pembroke Dock Town Council for funding of £2,500, and the Bluestone Foundation for funding of £900 towards the cost of setting up the Pembroke Dock Community Fridge.

The Community Fridges are stocked entirely through surplus donations from supermarkets, local businesses and community members. Pembrokeshire REFILL would like to encourage everyone to take what they can use, and to donate what they can afford, whether that’s surplus veggies from the garden, tins from the larder or a contribution towards the running costs.