23 Feb All the Right “in.gredients”: Update on Austin’s Eagerly-Awaited Zero-Waste Grocery Store

The other day I found myself wondering, “So when IS that package-free, zero-waste grocery store in.gredients supposed to be opening?”

Figuring that some of you, my fellow AustinEcoNetworkers, might be wondering the same thing, I contacted in.gredients team member Brian Nunnery and asked him a bunch of questions. Our conversation (many thanks, Brian!) led to this article. 

On the subject of zero waste and packaging, do you know how much trash goes into American landfills each day? About 700,000 tons! Can you imagine? That’s 63,000 25-ton garbage trucks every single day. And of that volume, some 40 percent comes from a single category: PACKAGING.¹  We can make a huge dent in the garbage crisis just by eliminating unnecessary package material. And speaking of package material, food packaging accounts for a staggering 60 percent of all packaging.²

Besides cutting the volume of trash, reducing food packaging also cuts our grocery bill. (Did you know that packaging accounts for 8.5 percent of your food dollar?)³

That’s why I (and lots of other people) are so excited about in.gredients, the zero-waste, package-free grocery store that’s opening soon here in Austin. It’ll be the first such grocery store in the United States! Given how desperate the landfill and garbage situation is, and given how hard various eco-minded groups are trying to eliminate disposable packaging, it’s a wonder that nobody in this country has opened a package-free grocery store before. 

But as I learned the other day from my chat with Brian from in.gredients, there are certain challenges to setting up a zero-waste, package-free grocery store. (In cases where packaging is mandated by law for public safety, such as for meat, in.gredients is using the minimal possible packaging, and is choosing compostable or biodegradable packaging wherever possible.) By navigating these challenges, and by gracefully turning obstacles into assets, in.gredients has arrived at the point where it’s just about ready to open its doors to the hungry public. 

Food packaging: More than meets the eye

For the overwhelming majority of supermarket products, packaging is actually unnecessary. Why, then, do the companies go to the extra expense and effort to create packaging even when it isn’t necessary for health and safety reasons? 

One, it serves as a marketing tool. (It’s hard to put a logo on bulk oatmeal.) 

Two, it allows a vendor to dictate quantity. (For example, a baked-goods company sells its muffins in packages of six, so you have to pay for six muffins even if you only want three.) 

And three, packaging sometimes makes it possible to store food longer. Say you have a food with a natural shelf-life of one week. Packaging and preservatives can extend that product’s shelf-life to six weeks or even a year! Given that there are probably less than 10 major food distribution facilities in the entire continental United States, it’s not hard to see why our food distribution system has a vested interest in extending shelf-life through packaging..

Vested interests aside, many vendors are actually enamored of the concept of a zero-waste, package-free grocery store but don’t know how to proceed because it’s new terrain. A big part of the work that in.gredients is doing, therefore, consists of working hand-in-hand with vendors to pioneer alternative methods. For example, to compensate its suppliers for the loss of packaging as a marketing tool, in.gredients is offering the suppliers alternative branding opportunities via its website in.gredients.com (such as publishing product ingredient lists, nutritional information, and recipes). 

Naturally local

A “zero-waste, package-free” business model naturally favors local vendors, whose products don’t rely as heavily on packaging because they spend far less time being transported and sitting in warehouses. 

In the conventional U.S. food distribution system, packaging generally goes hand-in-hand with preservatives to help food survive its journey from the farm to your plate. Before the food even hits your grocery store, it spends a long time on shelves and in transit. Something is manufactured in Sacramento, sold/shipped to a distributor in Philadelphia, sold/shipped to a grocery chain based in Phoenix, shipped to a retail location in Austin … Most people think the reason for packaging is solely to extend shelf life after they buy the product. That’s not true in most cases, Brian informed me.

Long story short: By cutting the circuitous journey from farm to plate, we can do away with a lot of preservatives and packaging.

And when it comes to producing delicious food locally, Austin offers an embarrassment of riches.

“We’ve been astounded at how many businesses there are in Austin making everything,” Brian told me. “We can get so many things zero to five miles from our store.” 

For anything not available right here in Austin, in.gredients is cultivating suppliers as locally as possible.

A customer browsing the produce section of a conventional supermarket might notice that all the avocados come from Mexico. And that person might wonder: What happens to all the avocados that are grown in south Texas? The folks at in.gredients would answer, “They’re going to be sold at our store!”

Green Behind the Scenes, Not Just Up Front

To fully carry out its mission, in.gredients is extending its zero-waste and package-free focus to its back-end operations. For example, it will reuse containers by having container trade-off arrangements with its suppliers of coffee and other bulk goods. Also, the store will be composting on-site. It will have a composting operation on the west side of the building and a garden up front. The store will use some compost on the garden and will offer some for sale. Local composting and recycling service providers will handle the composting operations. (Contrary to what I had thought, the store didn’t have to push any regulations to implement its on-site composting system. But since it was the first time this had been done in the United States, the certification took a bit of time.)

“A Grocery Store in Scope; a Corner Store in Scale”

With aspirations to be “a grocery store in scope and a corner store in scale,” in.gredients is developing a “dense and efficient”  layout that prioritizes basic ingredients. The store will only carry one to three items of any given category. (So, for example, you won’t find 27 different kinds of salad dressing or juice.)

In fact, rather than encourage people to buy products like salad dressing, which we can just as well make ourselves, in.gredients will promote a “DIY” approach by selling the basic component ingredients and providing recipes. 

Turning Obstacles Into Assets

When I asked Brian what he saw as the biggest obstacles to the launch of in.gredients, he replied that neither the fundraising nor the task of raising public awareness had been difficult — “we’ve been overwhelmed by the level of public support.” Rather, the main snag has been the construction process: “Construction is usually complicated and time-consuming.” 

But in.gredients has turned even that obstacle into an asset: “Although construction has taken longer than expected, we’ve been thankful for the extra time because it’s given us time to educate our customers, our vendors, and the City.”

Any Advice?

I asked Brian what advice he would give to someone else trying to start a store like in.gredients. 

– “It takes a lot more work than you think it does. A typical grocery store partners with, say, three distributors who supply the store with all its food. We put a lot of work into building relationships with individual farmers, producers, and other vendors.”

– “There is no ‘User’s Manual.’ Read books about Slow Food, Slow Money, and so on to get the bigger picture of what you’re doing. We read a lot of books about real food and how a local food system works.”

– Strive to educate and serve your community. “We’re excited about teaching people. We’re starting to get involved with local elementary schools, the Girl Scouts, and so on.”

So When Can We Shop at in.gredients?

The store will open in late spring or early summer of this year. Watch the website in.gredients.com for updates. And get those reusable bags and other containers ready! Yes, that includes wine bottles and Growlers too, because of course there’ll be local wine and beer on tap along with the many other high-quality local bulk items.

Sources for facts and figures on trash and packaging:

¹ in.gredients.com

² technologystudent.com

³ “Cost of Food Services and Distribution” (USDA publication, available at www.usda.gov/news/pubs/fbook99/sections/1b.pdf )