Join our team to help reduce plastic pollution at our Bournville store!

Join our team at The Clean Kilo Bournville

UPDATED 10.08.25 – Application Deadline 29th August – Shop Assistant Position

We have an exciting opening for a casual position at our Bournville store!

Summary for Shop Assistant Position:

We have an exciting position for a Shop Assistant at our Bournville store! This position would be best suited for someone who is looking for extra hours and work experience alongside their other commitments or studies. Flexible weekend and weekday shifts are available.

There will be a regular weekly shift and also additional shifts will be offered to cover staff holidays/sicknesses alongside busier periods such as Christmas. There is also scope to move into a higher hour fixed contract role based on performance.

Food/retail or hospitality experience is essential for this role.

We are looking for someone who has a passion for the environment and can show initiative in their work. Please read below for an overview of the person specification for this role.

If this sounds like you, please send a CV and cover letter to: contact@thecleankilo.co.uk

What does it take to be in The Clean Kilo team 

Love for the environment, lots of hard work and showing great initiative!

Why are we different to any other shop you may have worked at?

Because we are selling items packaging free of course! Committing to selling without the packaging means our job is much harder! See below for the detailed list of the work that is required in a zero-waste shop!

Heavy lifting and on your feet:

Imagine, in a regular supermarket… all the plastic packaged items are quickly stacked on a shelf to be picked up by customers. At our shop, you will have to be reasonably fit as you be lifting heavy dispensers and filling it up with a bulk bag when products are low and putting away bulk deliveries (up to 25kg bags). 

Also, you will be on a busy shop floor, multi-tasking and likely to be on your feet for the duration of your shift – this ranges from 4 to 8 hours.

Lots of cleaning:

No packaging means our dispensers need to be cleaned regularly and thoroughly.

Also, we have created a circular economy with many of our local suppliers to eliminate single use packaging. This means containers need cleaned before they are returned to the supplier – for instance our 10L buckets for milk, our 7kg box for coffee, or 1.5kg bucket for crisp, the list goes on!

Refusing to sell in plastic convenience packaging means taking the extra time to REUSE what we have!

Above and beyond customer service:

If you have been into our shop particularly on a Saturday, you will know we always have lots of new customers and passers-by. We pride ourselves on giving amazing customer service because we don’t want anyone to feel alienated by our zero-waste shop. We want our customers to feel confident using our dispensers and scales and to feel that no question is too silly to ask! We also need staff with lightening reaction to catch any new customers that look like they are about to make an epic spillage!

Soaring hygiene standards

When you work in a shop without packaging, vigilance with hygiene is key – our work environment, ultimately is susceptible to a higher risk of cross contamination. Therefore, our staff have to be extra careful when filling dispensers and super hygienic all round!

Other responsibilities include:

Visual merchandising – we need a keen eye for detail and making the shop look ‘instagrammable’ as some may say.

Handling money and operating a till (our scale system is pretty easy to get used to after a while).

Other qualities:

Retail/hospitality and customer service experience is essential.

We are also looking for staff with knowledge on living a more sustainable lifestyle and an interest in food, cooking and health.

If you have managed to get to the bottom of this post and you are still interested – well done! We are a lovely close-knit team and we have fun here – although the job role is demanding, it is rewarding that the effort we make is to ultimately to help reduce plastic pollution and raise awareness!

Rate of pay for Casual shop assistant: £12.21 for 21 years and over/national minimum wage. 

Please state on your cover letter why you are the right person for this challenging role, Successful covering letters will address and demonstrate all of the above qualities and requirements. Send this along with your CV to contact@thecleankilo.co.uk.

Huge apologies in advance that we will not be able to get back to unsuccessful applicants – we are a really small team and we are always working around the clock!

Good luck and we look forward to hearing from you!

Jeanette and Tom