Reducing Waste - Ways to Shop

WAYS TO SHOP WITH ZERO WASTE

HEAD TO YOUR LOCAL FARMERS MARKETS

The markets are full of fresh fruit and vegetables, bread, eggs, honey and more wholesome fresh foods. You can also find other dry goods in bulk such as nuts, beans, cereals, etc - meaning you can buy as much as you need and also at a lower cost than you would if it were packaged! Honest to Goodness has two market stalls in Sydney; one at Leichhardt (Saturday) and Frenches Forest (Sunday), both of which sell a range of our most popular organic & natural dried fruit, nuts, cereals, beans, peas, lentils and canned goods (BPA Free). See the Shopping List here.  

Handy Tip: Find organic food markets across Sydney, Newcastle and the Central Coast here, as well as a list of Melbourne Farmers Markets or right across Victoria. For Australia wide markets search this directory.  

USE YOUR OWN CONTAINERS

Take glass jars and/or containers from home to bulk wholefood stores in your local area is also a great way to reduce plastic. Our Honest to Goodness Sydney-based shop offers a 5% discount if you purchase more than 1kg out of our bulk bins! We provide paper bags as well as sell reusable shopping bags to make sure your goodies can be taken home safely, whilst avoiding those nasty plastic bags you get from supermarkets.

Handy hint: Try bringing your own container to the deli or butcher as well!

JOIN A FOOD BUYING GROUP/CO-OP

Or start one yourself! If you have limited options to purchase or buy in bulk by yourself, simply get together with a group of friends, colleagues or local community to start your own food buying group. You can order our wholefood products in bulk and split them up across the co-op members (and then into your own containers), both of which reduces plastic packaging and saves money! Win-win!

WHY DOES HONEST TO GOODNESS PACK IN PLASTIC?

We too feel strongly about the amount of plastic waste that is generated today and we are trying to make a conscious effort to minimise plastic use wherever we can, whilst also trying to keep our food products as fresh and as secure as possible.

We have done extensive research and trials with biodegradable packaging options and continue to do so as new technologies are coming onto the market all the time. The key here is to provide a compostable option that has sufficient good oxygen barrier properties that allow the food inside to remain fresh and tasty, free from pests and can be kept for an extended period of time - you don’t want your organic nuts going soggy!

Unfortunately at this moment to date we have not had any success sourcing film for our retail packets that are truly compostable and that also satisfy the key criteria for storage/shelf life. If you are aware of anything out there please do let us know! If you are interested in reading more about the state of bio plastics including biodegradable and compostable packaging, view this useful blog post here.

We have also looked into simple cardboard and paper options however unfortunately, these kinds of materials do not provide adequate protection from the atmosphere and also quite often break in transit. We do continuously look for appropriate alternative packaging and hope one day soon that there will be a good solution for us.

Our current retail and bulk plastic packaging have been designed to be reusable – as you will notice it has a resealable zip at the top! A lot of customers have told us they use our packets for a range of things, from refilling the bags with more wholefoods, to even storing their pegs in the laundry!

Our shipping methods for online orders may use a combination of plastic and paper to protect glass and fragile items during delivery.

Must-Know Tip: Plastic (bubble) wrap, along with our plastic retail and bulk bags, can all be recycled in REDcycle bins around the country, just like the one in the photo below (via My Wholesome Pantry).

On a final note, we have always been 100% plastic shopping bag free in our Sydney store and at the markets. Also at least 50% or more of our products are supplied in bulk, BPA free cans, glass jars or using paper packaging.

Read more about our sustainability values here.