Maximizing the eco-friendly shopping experience is not an easy thing to do as it involves changing people’s attitudes but Dan Prince has achieved exactly that with Fill Full in Fore Street.

Whilst many of the towns more mature residents fondly remember the shopping experience of days gone by when you would scoop and measure all the various produce, this store brings the concept a little more up to date. In order to assist everyone in reducing the amount of wasted plastics causing so much grief in the world you can bring your own containers and have them refilled every week with all your favourites from loose tea to shampoo.

Following a ten-year career in advertising in North Devon, Dan moved to Ottery St Mary and becoming more and more aware of the global situation, he set up his rather unique shop in the small town in a bid to assist others in making a difference.

Most of us tend to reach a stage in our lives when we start to become more aware of certain global influences and as Dan told us earlier this week: “We only have this planet after all there isn’t another 'Planet B' we can jump on if this one go wrong.”

And speaking personally, I think it’s fair to say that the last two years have seen it go wrong just a little bit and made most of us take a step back and think.

Expanding further afield and as soon as restrictions allowed, Fill Full was opened in the former Santander building in April of this year and although it may seem a slightly odd way of shopping for some of the town's younger inhabitants, it has a reassuring feel once inside when you realise what’s on offer and how each purchase makes a difference to the planet.

With a vast range of food products on offer, including many plastic-free versions of familiar and well-used items including your toothbrush, the store compliments all this, by stocking some more unusual gifts including wooden watches and sunglasses which really have to be seen and worn to understand them, no splinters here I can assure you.