We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emily Larson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Emily, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I realized refilleries were pretty popular on the coasts of the US – California, New Jersey, etc. and there weren’t any in San Antonio! I wanted to open a brick and mortar right away but I had no idea if that would be something the San Antonio community would be interested in and support so I decided to start with a pop up refillery at farmers markets on the weekends! People constantly commented on how they wish San Antonio had a brick and mortar refillery and sustainable goods home – the closest is in San Marcos. But there was enough interest at farmers markets that I decided to take the risk! I quit my full time job at the end of January 2023 and opened Revolution Refillery April 2023! Being the only refillery in San Antonio definitely gives people the option to live a more sustainable and plastic free life – which really excited me!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Revolution Refillery gives people the option to refill their bottles instead of having to “recycle” or throw them away just to go buy another bottle from the grocery store – ex. shampoo, body wash, laundry liquid, etc. I’m giving people the option to reduce the amount of waste (plastic waste especially) that they throw away and to switch to more sustainable options to help out Mother Earth! There is so much to learn about sustainability and I am here at your disposal for all the questions and advice!

I got into sustainability in 2020 – I moved across the country from South Dakota to Texas, middle of the pandemic, with no plan. Everyone was posting about how much cleaner the air and the water was without having humans out and about polluting everything and so I decided I needed to start making some switches myself. I started out by bringing my own grocery bags instead of taking plastic ones home. I switched to laundry detergent sheets so I wasn’t throwing away giant laundry jugs. I started using reusable storage bags instead of single use plastic ziplock bags. Simple switches like these can make such a huge impact – especially over time. I started to get more and more into sustainability, seeing what other states had available like refilleries and wondered why we didn’t have one here in SA. I decided that in the (far) future I would open my own. That future came sooner than later and I started the pop up refillery on the weekends in July of 2022 and opened the brick and mortar refillery in April 2023!

One thing that I like to keep track of so that people can see their direct impact is bottles refilled! I have a board that updates daily on the amount of bottles refilled which in return shows how many bottles have been kept out of the landfill. Since April 2023, we are at 1,217 bottles refilled and it will only continue to go up!

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Social media plays a huge role in any business these days and I always keep my DM’s open for my community to feel free to ask any questions about products or ask for advice! I like to get input from my community a lot also so asking for their opinions on what they would like to see in the store next, what scents they like, what questions they have about products in the store or how I use them. Almost every sustainable swap – people have either never heard of it or have heard of it and don’t know how to use it. I test everything that I bring into the store myself before selling it so I have personal experience with it and I can give advice to people making the switch for the first time!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Being the only refillery in San Antonio definitely helped build my reputation! If anyone googled “refillery san antonio” or “zero waste san antonio” Revolution Refillery popped up. I also think being pretty young to be a business owner surprised and impressed people – I was only 22 when I decided to started everything! When talking to people in person, I think my want to truly help people live a more sustainable lifestyle and help the planet really shines through. I truly believe in every product at the refillery and use them all myself so I think that really stands out to most customers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.revolutionrefillery.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revolutionrefillery/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/revolutionrefillery/
• Other: Tiktok – https://www.tiktok.com/@revolutionrefillery