Shopping: Zero Waste Edition - My first unpackaged experience

Let me start with a confession: I've never been to an unpackaged store. Although I have a certain consumer awareness for my waste production and the environment and there are actually quite a lot of such stores here in Munich, I somehow haven't had it on my agenda to go into one yet. Organic stores, regional markets? Yes, they are my regular shopping stops. But unpackaged stores? Nope, so I took the #plasticfreejuly as an opportunity to go behind the scenes during an interview with Hannah Sartin, co-founder and owner of two unpackaged branches of the OHNE store here in Munich.

1. First steps in the plastic-free land of milk and honey
2. Unpacked - how does the concept work behind the scenes?
3. Declaring war on plastic: how to get ready for unpackaged
4. Zero waste concepts: a thing of the future?

1. first steps in the plastic-free land of milk and honey

Of course, I already knew what an unpackaged store could look like. I'd already looked in a few of them and there's also a little corner with the containers in the organic food store. But seeing the whole thing up close somehow made me feel like a child in a candy store. Except that instead of jars and vases full of gummy bears and sweets, there are neatly lined up glass bins. These are cylindrical containers filled with beans, different types of pasta, rice, lentils, nuts, coffee, and, and, and. Admittedly, my little foodie heart beat a little faster to see all the food presented so openly. And suddenly I remembered what I had "always" wanted to cook, what was still missing in my pantry... Nothing was actually missing, but I just had a craving for these foods that were shining at me through the glass containers. I was completely blown away by the stainless steel honeycomb from which you could tap fresh honey! As a passionate amateur cook, my knees went weak at the sight of the spice rack. You simply don't see such a colorful and hunger-inducing selection through the rows of plastic bags in the supermarket. To get to the point: I really wanted to go shopping again!

2. unpackaged - how does the concept work behind the scenes?

One of the first questions I asked myself was actually how things work in the background of such an unpackaged store. Hannah explains to me how the two OHNE stores in Munich work:

"It works in many different ways and I think every Unverpackt store has its own system. Some work with a wholesaler, some with lots of direct marketers. We have a good mix. In other words, we sometimes work with an organic wholesaler from whom we purchase goods in bulk - usually 25 kg bags. But we also have Bavarian tofu in returnable jars in the chiller cabinet, for example, which is produced by a small family business. This works according to the reusable principle. The tofu delivery comes on Thursdays and then the empties go straight back with it. The baker comes every morning and brings fresh bread for which he also bakes the flour from the grain from the organic farm that supplies us. So the different stages from grain to flour to bread are all in one store. We are particularly pleased with these cycles because we also want the value chains to be as transparent as possible so that customers can really understand exactly where everything comes from."

Transparency is essential when shopping these days. We want to know exactly where our food comes from, or the cosmetics we use. And we want to be able to trust that the information we receive about the origin and processing is correct. It is not enough to simply print the country of origin on the products. Especially with the more "exotic" goods, such as chia seeds or various types of nuts, which simply don't grow here but have been requested for our range. Of course, you can raise your eyebrows and ask yourself whether it is necessary to offer products that travel such long distances in a store that is all about sustainability. But the range is designed based on demand - and that's a good thing, because otherwise all the unpackaged stores would have to pack up again.

"We have mainly built up our range based on customer demand. So we started with linseed instead of chia seeds, with Bavarian rice instead of basmati rice. Right from the start, we set up boxes where we collected customer requests and then looked to see what was in high demand and expanded our range accordingly. After all, we live from customers coming to us and buying. As an organic-certified store, we naturally source everything in organic quality. And we always try to source everything fairly, which is important to us. But of course, as a retailer, we also need a certain level of trust in the manufacturer and the middleman. We can try to find out as much as possible about the distance - similar to the packaged goods in organic stores. But it's not always traceable down to the last detail."

Sustainable companies can only be as transparent sustainable as the retailers, middlemen and manufacturers allow them to be. Hannah sums it up: "If we didn't include many of the things that would be attractive in our range out of conviction, then we wouldn't be able to keep going. So it's simply a compromise."

And a compromise is many times better than the alternative: unbelievable plastic and paper consumption and all this just so that we can "more conveniently" transport the food from the supermarket to our homes, of which we only know the country of origin, just to dispose of the packaging. Do we really need this?

3. declare war on plastic: how to get ready for unpackaged

Hannah has shared her experiences for you (and me) and collected her top 3 tips for unpackaged shopping:

1. in advance: stocktaking

"The first step is actually always to take stock at home - even before the actual shopping. I would say even several weeks beforehand. You can observe yourself first and see: What do I actually need? How often do I go shopping? Am I someone who goes to the supermarket every day and shops spontaneously, or do I like to plan ahead and write things down? That way you get a good feel for what you buy, how often and what quantities you need."

2. do not overthink

"You can't be too hard on yourself and you just have to get started. I know that I've given a lot of thought beforehand to everything I need to change before I can get off to a perfect start. But you can actually get started straight away and you usually already have everything you need at home. We all have storage boxes or lunch boxes. You don't need any fancy equipment. Before you slow yourself down because you think you can't do it perfectly anyway, start with small steps before you turn away. Be yourself, observe, choose three products to start with that you want to switch to unpackaged and off you go."

3. make yourself light - not just in your head

"We always recommend going as light as possible. That means: leave the glass or plastic containers at home. Instead, use washable cotton bags that you can close. We also sell them here, but you can also simply sew them yourself or get them as a gift. They are super practical because they are lightweight, almost comparable to a paper bag. And you can also vary the quantities with them."

4 Zero waste store concepts: a thing of the future?

"When we started 6 years ago, it was still relatively new and was always viewed a bit critically, I had the feeling. It has definitely developed, as you can see from the number of unpackaged stores that now exist across Germany. We're seeing that openness towards the topic has increased significantly in recent years because it has become more central to the general discussion."

Six years ago, there was still skepticism, but now concepts such as plastic-free, recycling, zero waste and second-hand are already well integrated in many places or on their way there. This gives us hope that the future is already here to some extent, that we are at least heading in the right direction, true to the motto: reduce, reuse, recycle. Consuming food, kitchen items, but also bathroom products, cleaning products, everyday objects and clothing more consciously, paying attention to our own waste production and also paying attention to which ingredients we consume, release into the environment or allow onto our skin is something that each and every one of us can do. This doesn't mean that we all have to turn our lives upside down overnight and only produce one cup of waste a year from now on (hats off to all those who are already doing this or something similar)! To conclude with Hannah's, in my opinion, very fitting words: "Before you slow yourself down because you think you can't do it perfectly anyway, it's better to start with small steps." And that's exactly what I'm doing now. Are you too?

A big thank you to Hannah for her insights, explanations, encouraging words and the beautiful pictures from the two OHNE stores! If you're from Munich and would like to take a look or find out more, you can do so here here. And if you'd like to open an unpackaged store yourself or make your café or restaurant more sustainable with the wonderful filling containers, you can even have yourself equipped with the glass bins from the OHNE stores you see in the pictures!