So apparently there’s this new trend of zero waste grocery stores where you bring your own containers. No more Tony the Tiger cereal boxes staring your toddler in the face. No more squeezable ketchup bottles. Just you and all the Tupperware you can haul to the store. Let the shit show begin!
I can’t even remember to bring my own reusable shopping bags (I honestly don’t care that much) to the grocery store, let alone, 50 containers for everything I need to buy. With a husband and 2 growing sons, my grocery bill falls between $125 to $350 each week. Can you imagine the number of containers I’d have to bring?
My Concerns
- So I’ve got some questions. No, not really questions but more like legitimate concerns. Not to be Debbie Downer but I don’t think this is going to work. Here would be my issues with this new concept (aka nightmares):
- If you don’t bring enough containers, where are you going to put the olive oil you forgot to bring a container for? Your pockets?
- You have to lug these containers to the grocery store. Every morning when I make lunches, I normally have 5 lids, none of which fit the sandwich container I have my son’s sandwich in. To have that many containers at any given time is borderline emotional abuse.
- So we all know how nasty buffets can be. Croutons dropped in cheese. There’s a stray slice of pizza sitting between a vat of pasta and a pizza pan. Dollops of dried ketchup sit below the ketchup spout. Now imagine an entire building dedicated to a buffet like set up. I looked at pictures of this concept where someone was filling a container of olive oil. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen the minute it drops on the floor and someone slips on it.
- Are the grocery store associates keeping track of what is being sold and making sure the old stuff is on top? You know you have lazy ones that will just keep filling the jug of spaghetti sauce, never rotating it.
- I live by expiration dates. Even if the manufacturer has lied to me and I still have an extra five days to use it, I don’t. I need my expiration dates. If there’s something I’m OCD about is the freshness of my food. At any given lunch time, you can find me in the break room meticulously going through my salad kit, lettuce leaf by lettuce leaf, picking out anything that looks remotely wilted.
- How the hell am I getting eggs home? Obviously I’m not a good environmentalist because I would have already had 2 chickens in my backyard producing the eggs but I didn’t think that far ahead.
- How much would you be over this packageless system when one of your Tupperware containers leaks on everything?
- I’m assuming toilet paper and paper towels aren’t offered since the entire product itself is waste?
- Same concern for frozen food. Do they sell bagel bites per bagel bite? Hot pockets by hot pockets?
Look, I’m sure this concept is great for a single hippy. But for me, shopping at a convenient store would prove easier than shopping at a place like this. What do you guys think about this? Would you shop here?
Yes, alas we have seen ‘Weigh and Save’ and various other help yourself shops come and go for the above reasons. And they were just dry goods. Food is packaged up for good reason; loading it up, getting it to the shops, getting it on the shelves, through the checkout and home…There are exceptions where we can go packaging free. At our local greengrocers I take my bag and throw everything in loose. Where my son lives in rural Shropshire there is a farm shop next door to them with no people. You just go in with your reusable glass bottle – put it under the spout, put money in the machine and out comes a litre ( two pints ) of full cream organic milk!
I see where you’re at with this, unless there’s some kind of genius behind this it becomes impractical.
I’m sure the concept would be similar to that of bulk food stores here – but I like the idea of bringing your own containers. I’ve seen a few documentaries on it and it looks really interesting. Of course it’s for those items that don’t need the extra packaging like cereal or dry goods. It’s a good choice to help cut down on waste
I’ll tell you in a couple of weeks, since one is opening up here shortly.
Most of them do sell containers, that are pre weighed but I don’t know about stock rotation. What i’ve noticed in photos, is that many of the bulk containers have a top fill, bottom distribution system which might help, but I’ll need to investigate.
A big plus is cost, it’s supposed to be much cheaper as you aren’t paying for a load of corporate marketing.
We’ll see