Booths is challenging local school children to design a ‘Bag for Life’ to mark the opening of its new Penrith store on November 15.
It’s inviting budding young green artists from primary schools across the Eden District to create a new image to appear on its reusable bags.
Children are asked to use the theme of healthy eating as the inspiration for their fresh and fruity designs.
Judges will be looking a simple and striking picture that captures the Five a Day message.
The winning design will appear on the limited edition Bags for Life which will be sold exclusively in the new Penrith store.
Richard Sykes, manager of the Booths Penrith store, said: “This is a great opportunity for children to use their imaginations and think creatively about sustainable living and eating more fruit and vegetables. We’re looking for a bold design that promotes fresh, healthy, seasonal food which is what Booths is all about.
“We hope the winning design will make a really positive impact in our new Penrith store and encourage more shoppers to ditch plastic bags in favour of environmentally-friendly reusable ones.”
Children should use no more than two or three colours to give their designs a powerful punch.
Each design must be sent in on an A4 sheet of paper and can be drawn, painted or digitally designed.
The winning bag will go on sale at every till in the new Booths store in Penrith which has been designed to be as environmentally friendly as possible.
Hi-tech green technologies used at the store include a heat recovery system which collects heat from the fridges to provide hot tap water and under-floor heating. This considerably reduces gas consumption.
A highly advanced refrigeration system will also be installed that uses a low-impact natural refrigerant and glass doors on the fridges provide a 45 per cent saving on energy.
Rain water will be collected in underground tanks and used to flush toilets as well as operating washing machines.
The ‘Design a Bag’ competition is one of many creative initiatives that Booths has introduced to help cut the use of plastic bags in its stores.
The retailer removed plastic bag dispensers from the checkouts at all of its 26 stores in Lancashire, Cumbria, Yorkshire and Cheshire. Instead of routinely handing out plastic bags, staff now ask each customer, "Do you need a carrier?".
Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and the Co-operative have all now followed Booths example by removing carrier bags from their checkouts.
In addition, Booths’ has offered customers eco-friendly jute bags and Bags for Life as alternatives.
Although carrier bags today use 70% less plastic than they did 20 years ago, most are still made from polyethylene, a kind of plastic which is non-degradable and can take up to 100 years to break down.
For every one billion plastic bags produced, 9,000 tonnes of plastic is used and 18,000 tonnes of CO2 produced.
All entries should be sent to The Penrith Bag for Life Competition, Booths Head Office, Longridge Road, Ribbleton, Preston PR2 5BX by December 10.
The new Bags for Life will be available at the new Booths Penrith store in the New Year.
The 20,000sq ft store will showcase The Booths Café, a new design concept for Booths which places a strong emphasis on quality freshly prepared food made in-store on the day of purchase.