The Store with Nothing to Hide: France’s First Plastic-Free Supermarket Is Rewriting Retail

In Toulouse, Le Super tout nu is eliminating over 1 million single-use packages per year — offering a bold new blueprint for circular living.

Visual by London studio Made Thought for environmental charity A Plastic Planet

It’s not every day a grocery store makes international headlines. But in 2025, that’s exactly what’s happening in Toulouse, France — in an era when clean air, clean water, and now, clean packaging are the new frontier of progress.

Welcome to Le Super tout nu — which translates cheekily to The Completely Naked Supermarket. But don’t be fooled by the name. What this store strips away isn’t modesty, but plastic.

This is France’s first entirely plastic-free supermarket, and it’s challenging everything we thought we knew about packaging, convenience, and the future of retail.

A Radical Shift: 2,000 Essentials, Zero Plastic

Step into Le Super tout nu and the difference is immediate. There are no shiny plastic wraps, no crinkly bags, no hidden layers of waste. Instead, customers browse over 2,000 daily essentials — from lentils in returnable glass jars to pasta in cotton drawstring bags.

Even household staples like shampoo, olive oil, and cleaning products are available in refillable formats. At checkout, shoppers can either bring their own containers or use the store’s deposit-return system for a small fee — completely eliminating single-use plastic.

The goal? To save more than 1 million pieces of packaging every year.

“We wanted to build something that’s not just sustainable, but practical and joyful”, say the store’s founders. “Waste-free shopping should be easier than wasteful shopping”.

The Local Connection: 60% of Products From Nearby Producers

But Le Super tout nu isn’t just about removing plastic — it’s about strengthening communities. Over 60% of its products are sourced from within a 100 km radius, supporting more than 400 local producers.

This drastically cuts carbon emissions from transportation, supports small-scale agriculture, and reconnects consumers with where their food comes from.

“It’s not just what we buy”, one shopper told us. “It’s how it gets here, and who we support along the way”.

The Policy Context: France's War on Waste

The opening of Le Super tout nu isn’t happening in a vacuum. France has emerged as a global leader in the fight against plastic waste.

Under the country’s 2020 Anti-Waste Law for a Circular Economy, France has set a legal course to phase out single-use plastics by 2040, with all plastic packaging required to be recyclable or reusable by 2025.

This is more than a green gimmick — it’s national policy turning into grassroots reality.

The Bigger Picture: Why This Matters Now

Plastic pollution is one of the most urgent environmental issues of our time. Every year, France alone generates over 4.5 million tonnes of plastic waste. In 2016, an estimated 80,000 tonnes ended up in the Mediterranean Sea — earning it the nickname “the world’s sixth plastic continent.”

Supermarkets are among the worst offenders. But Le Super tout nu flips the script.

This isn’t about niche eco-retail. This is a full-scale supermarket proving that zero-waste isn’t a luxury — it’s a viable, scalable model for the future.

What Comes Next?

Already, similar stores are opening or expanding in other countries: Ekoplaza in the Netherlands, YES FUTURE in Paris, and independent refill shops across the UK, Germany, and Spain.

The momentum is real. And as awareness grows, so too will pressure on mainstream retailers to adapt.

What Le Super tout nu represents is more than a milestone — it’s a movement.

Conclusion: The Circular Economy Goes Mainstream

In a world where headlines are dominated by crises — of climate, waste, and ecological breakdown — this story offers something rare: a solution that is already working.

With every jar refilled, every plastic wrapper avoided, Le Super tout nu shows us that circular living isn’t a dream. It’s a choice. One made visible, viable, and increasingly vital.

If the future of shopping looks like this — transparent, local, waste-free — it just might be the most exciting aisle we’ve walked down in years.