Our Story

  • Our vision is a world where people waste less and reuse more.

    Read more on our Instagram: 

  • We are a small family business in the Lancashire Hills on a mission to inspire people to reduce waste and single-use plastics by creating a range of gorgeous, reusable everyday essentials with a playful twist. 

    I'm the founder, Katy, and my journey started almost twenty years ago in East Africa where I lived and worked for many years. On returning to the UK I became frustrated with the amount of waste and single-use plastics on sale and in the bin! After living for years in a country where people reuse, refurbish and repurpose the contrast in the UK was astounding. Roll on a few years and I set up ecojiko. To keep the inspiration from my time spent with the incredible waste-free mamas I named the business after the Swahili word 'jiko' meaning kitchen. 

    I manage the ‘Jack of all trades’ elements of the business and my ever-patient partner, Stuart can be found at the bottom of the garden in our workshop busy laser engraving wooden brushes or managing all the digital aspects to the business that regularly confuse me! 

    Since our launch our fun range has grown and we are over the moon that you can find our products in more than 250 independent stores worldwide and 140 Oxfam stores across the UK!

Our Values

  • Kindness

    Ah, if everyone was kind, just imagine! Kindness isn’t just our mission, it’s our superpower, flowing through our customer service and our chats with manufacturers and retailers. We're firm believers that a daily dose of kindness is like a turbo boost for the soul.

    We're all about kindness in our choice of suppliers and manufacturers. We make sure they treat their employees right, with fair pay and respect. Plus we give a little love to Friends of the Earth, and Surfers Against Sewage with each sale and to CancerCare with sales of our Breast Cancer Awareness Scrubbers. Who knew doing good could feel this good?

  • Community

    We've crunched the numbers (OK, maybe not exactly, but trust us, it's
    science!) - shopping small and independent is 121% better for your mental
    well-being. The chat with a stranger, the story telling, discovering the coolest products, all while knowing your hard-earned cash is supporting a family, not some big, faceless corporation. We tip our hats to the indie stores that have embraced our range and to the fellow small brands out there rocking it. Small changes, big community, mammoth impact!

  • Playful

    At our core, we're all about embracing the silly and quirky - it's our whole philosophy because life's too short to be serious all the time, so why not engrave eyes on inanimate objects!

    If we can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, adding a sprinkle of silliness to brighten your day, then we've hit the jackpot of our mission! After all, why settle for mundane when you can have a giggle along the way?

    A little bit of giddiness is the best kind of medicine for the soul.

  • Planet Happy

    Our mission is to minimise waste and single-use plastics with our range of reusable must-haves with a playful twist.

    We believe you make choices with every pound you spend on the kind of world you want to live in. Our desks are made from old scaffold boards, our workshop is decked out with revamped shelves that were ready for the skip, we use road or boat to import our products whenever possible and we reuse boxes from local friends and businesses in our wholesale orders. All our packaging is plastic free and recyclable. We love reusing, being thrifty and prioritising the planet.

As featured in....

  • Good Homes

  • The Guardian

  • New Scientist