GreenAcres shoppers have been helping themselves to our bulk department for years; but newbies may not even know a bulk section exists in any of our three markets.
Take a stroll along the bulk aisles and you’ll find plexiglass bins containing all manner of bulk items from rice and quinoa to beans and nuts. There are candies and snack items, dried fruits and gourmet salts. It’s a whole new world of yummy things you can purchase by the ounce or by the box! What’s your pleasure?!
Customers might not be aware there is a whole science behind buying in bulk. The first is environmental; the second is economic. For example, did you know natural and organic foods from the bulk bins costs an average of 89% less than packaged goods? Those fancy foods that attract from a plethora of colorful boxes and logos don’t come cheap. Also, if you buy in bulk, you don’t contribute to the environmental mess that eventually finds all those pretty cartons and packages in landfills all over the United States (biodegradable over time or not).
There’s an efficiency in buying in bulk. You can buy exactly what you want and need; nothing goes to waste or gets dated. Also, little baggies of bulk items fit easily into any size pantry (think an ounce of Himalayan pink salt instead of a whole carton.) Buying just ounces of certain items lets you try more things for less money which is a huge savings, especially for those samplers of life that prefer to “try” a new product before committing to it.
Key organic bulk categories that one can expect significant savings are:
- Coffee and tea
- Grains and flour
- Spices
- Dried fruit
- Beans
- Pasta
- Confections
Also, customers might not know there exists a Bulk Is Green (BIG) Council that is a non-profit organization that encourages consumers to cut down on food waste, and grocers to provide bulk bins and buying sources for their customers. In just a few months, BIG will celebrate its National Bulk Foods Week, October 16-22, 2016. Its goal is to have more than 1700 stores celebrating the reason to “love bulk.”
From a recent BIG’s newsletter we learn that “up to 40% of the food supply in the US goes to waste (that’s shameful!), translating to 34 million tons of food waste a year.
We in the business of natural living want to leave our environment cleaner than we have enjoyed it so that the next generations will hopefully follow in our footprints and leave the planet in even better condition.
GreenAcres offers a wide variety of bulk foods. We invite you to peruse our aisles and take advantage of the savings. Everything is fresh and kept fresh. Give bulk a chance…and save.
