Harriet’s of Hove
Harriet here to tell you about Harriet’s of Hove, our independent small business in the heart of Hove. Our business was born from a passion for the environment and a desire to lower the amount of single use plastics in the world.
About 4 years ago, my partner Mhiran (aka Mr Harriet) and I set off on a new adventure and opened a plastic-free refill shop in my hometown. We wanted to offer our community a different way to shop for sustainable and ethical products free from single use plastics. And more importantly, we wanted to start empowering individuals to make a change to their lifestyle and create a positive impact on the environment. Mhiran and I knew opening a new business would be an immense challenge, our backgrounds are in healthcare, I was a nurse and Mhiran a dentist. But, spurred on by our growing concern about the global plastics crisis and the harm it is continuously doing to our planet we decided to go for it. We put our dream into action.
Opening a shop with minimal retail experience may have been a bit naive and the early years have certainly been challenging. The ability to start from scratch has enabled us to build the business up, while showing a different way to do things is possible. Now, we are a well established business and are delighted to have helped thousands of people to significantly lower their use of plastics. This feels like the most rewarding part, for planetary benefits.
Our achievements in lowering our use of non-customer facing plastics are also considered big wins and we are constantly reviewing and improving the way we work. It is extremely important to us that change and campaign is at the forefront of what we do.
We welcome anyone into our store who is looking to access sustainable living in a way which works for them and their lifestyle.
Our Team
(written by Cosmea)
Harriet's of Hove is proud to be a now all female lead business (sometimes Mr Harriet pops in to help!). Our small but mighty team is made up of Harriet (obviously), Karen, Tamsin, Elizabeth and Cosmea. We all work the shop floor but have additional roles within the business.
Harriet is the big boss as you may have already guessed. She works hard to ensure that the business is all running smoothly behind the scenes. But you may also catch her in store as she likes to work behind the till to see all the customers and loves refilling - even when it's not her shopping!
Karen has been working at HoH since near the beginning nearly 4 years ago. She is in charge of making sure we all keep up-to-date with important food standards work and policies. Plus she's the rota Queen, so she's in charge of the days off. We're all lucky she loves that stuff!
Tamsin is our stock expert. Her role is very important and she does an amazing job at making sure the shop is stocked and ready for our customers to come and refill. Ask her about any product and she'll give you a great plant-based recipe!
Elizabeth joins us part-time and blesses the store with her cheery presence at the weekends. With a background in sustainable food recipes and baking, she's a great asset to the team.
And then there's me, Cosmea! I'm known as a knowledgeable and super eco gal, always ready to help new customers find refill options that fit them. I'm also our social media bee, introducing the store to TikTok in a big way!...Sharing with our followers the behind the scenes of working at a refill shop, price comparisons to major supermarkets and just general store antics! I'm here for this :-D
Our vision
(written by Harriet)
After remaining open throughout the pandemic and serving our community with a refillable and quality shopping option (*including every day of lockdowns), we would now like to grow bigger and better. We are fast approaching our eco- shop’s 4th birthday and we would like to celebrate with a fresh new post-pandemic glow up! For nearly 4 years, HoH has offered the local community (and wider) a chance to make their own difference in the world through actions like refilling. We truly believe that we have started a hub right in the centre of our community in which people can fight single use plastic, purchase affordable and high quality refill goods.
The aim is to fix up our shop and provide our customers with even more refillable products (going from over 400 to 430) and improve the in-store experience. With your donations, we would like to:
- Install 20 new gravity bins and 10 scoops bins in order to extend the range of refill products we offer, this will also mean we can help homes become eco in even more ways.
- Redecorate to improve customer experience through lighting/visual merchandising and a much needed fabulous shop spruce up!
- A mural wall to celebrate our local community and all those who have made higher donations to our crowdfunder. Please see donations information for more details.
- Improve staff rest area, because the staff members need some TLC too and they are integrel to our business.
- Improve our store room to make it a more organised and workable space, especially with all the new products coming!
As always, we will be hiring local and small and sustainble businesses to help us with our work. It’s part of our store ethos that we support other businesses just like ours, every step of the way.
Prize Draw
Float Spa - Float Session
Spanglewood - Woodland Charcoal Experience + charcoal and biochar bags
Tea’s Me - Tea hamper set
Loop Loop - Bundle of cards + a print
Ruby Doobeys - 2 x hamper boxes
5 x family pack of F.E.T.E bamboo toothbrushes + ear tuls
360 Brewing Company mixed case of beers
Sesi sustainable travel set
Soulsome box of chocolates
Floating Feather lip balm
Mintie Lunch box
CORPORATE PRIZE ONLY - FETE - 10 x toothbrushes + 10 x ear tuls