1. Packaging
Our main aim is to produce as little packaging waste as possible, this includes not just plastic but paper too. We do this by buying all our dried foods such as oats or rice in large bulk quantities which our customer can then buy in their own container. These large bulk bags are mainly paper, but occasionally some are plastic to ensure the product remains fresh. Where possible we work with suppliers and wholesalers to try and encourage the use of paper or other recyclable packaging.
We also encourage our customers to bring their own containers to fill rather than using paper bags.
Our fresh fruit and veg comes largely loose and nothing is individually wrapped. We encourage people to bring their own bags, tubs, totes but we do offer paper bags if required. There is instances where some veg will come with some plastic packaging through the wholesale process but nothing is ever individually wrapped.
2. Local sources
It is a huge part of our ethos to use suppliers which are local to us as much as possible. There’s a few reasons for this; using local suppliers boosts our local economy, it reduces carbon emissions from longer journeys, local suppliers are more flexible with reducing or removing packaging. We use a few local growers/producers such as:
- Locavore
- The wash house garden
- Good Coffee Cartel
- Eds Bees Honey
- Caurnie Soaperie
- Scotland the Bread
- Aye Pickled
- Mossgiel Milk
- Brose Oat milk
- Egglicious eggs
- Bloom and Nora
- Waxys wraps
- Arran cheese
- Left Coast Culture
- Rapscallion Soda
- Two Birds
- Glasgow Mushroom co.
- Glasgow Micro greens
Not everything in the shop is locally sourced however we try and source things from as close as generally possible and work with suppliers who perform due diligence further down the supply chain.
3. Closed loop systems
When we look for new suppliers, we ask a lot of questions and one of them is always “can we do this on a closed loop system?”. A closed loop system means that no single use packaging is used, we simply pass a reusable option back and forth and the supplier refills it for us each time. We have a number of closed loop products such as:
- Bio D cleaning products
- Mossgiel Milk
- Brose oat milk
- Good Coffee Cartel Coffee
- Eds Bees Honey
- Caurnie Soaperie shampoo and conditioner
- Egglicious eggs
4. Composting
As a busy greengrocer we stock a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables. We aim to have as little food wasted as possible and ensure that nothing ever ends up in landfill, where it would rot and release greenhouse gasses. There are three ways in which we do this.
- We order from our supplier regularly, to ensure fruit and vegetables are turning over quickly and are as fresh as possible each day.
- We have a free veg box, where anything past its best can be taken for free by our customers – we would rather it go to good use than make money from it.
- Anything that doesn’t end up being used goes in our food waste caddy and is collected for composting by our food waste partner.
5. Organic
We are proud to stock organic fruit and vegetables from Locavore as much as possible. The amount of organic or non-organic fruit and vegetables in stock in any particular week can vary, we make decisions based on price, seasonality and availability to ensure shopping with us is accessible to any budget. We also stock organic dried products where we can whilst ensuring a good price for our customers.
6. Vegan
We are not a 100% vegan shop, however we support veganism as much as possible. We strive to have as many vegan alternatives as possible
- Mayonnaise
- Oat Milk
- Butter
- Cheese
- Chocolate
- Soaps
- Sweets
You can be confident when shopping with us that each of these six points has been carefully considered with each of our products, and while not all products will hit every point perfectly, they will always hit one or two. Living an ethical lifestyle, and running an ethical business is not straight forward and perfection is hard to achieve, but we make the best effort to choose the most sustainable option, whilst ensuring we are always improving and working with suppliers with similar ethics and goals. We regularly review our products to ensure we always have the best option in and would love suggestions from our customers!