CUSTOMERS at a small supermarket in Bradford on Avon are beating some of London’s top stores when it comes to returning empty milk bottles.

Christine’s Sustainable Supermarket son Silver Street ells more than 65 bottles of milk to customers from the town, surrounding villages and as far afield as Swindon.

“We buy the milk from the Ivy House farm at Beckington, which has one of the top five Jersey dairy herds in the country,” said owner Christine Giles.

“We are their top shop for returning the empties for refilling, with a score of more than 90 per cent.

“We’ve even beat the likes of Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and Selfridges in London.”

Mrs Giles sells skimmed and semi-skilled milk for £1.65 per 750ml bottle, and whole milk for £1.75 a bottle.

“When we sold milk in plastic bottles, we used to sell a maximum of 15 a week. After we switched to selling them in glass bottles, sales just rocketed,” Mrs Giles said.