Whole Food Market U.K. Chain

21 May 2014 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.2.3 Supermarkets & Chains Tagged 3.1.3 bakery, 3.1.3 beans & pulses, 3.1.3 dried fruit and nuts, 3.1.3 Fruit & Veg, 3.1.3 Groceries, 3.1.3 herbs & spices & seasonings, 3.1.3 Meat & Fish, 3.6 #P-fU.K. Directory, 5 Content Veiw 8 Comments

Rushing through the Cheltenham suburbs, had to buy wine so lurched into the huge carpark of an out of town shopping experience. By which I mean a cluster of huge supermarkets snarling at each other across an enormous expanse of tarmac dotted with a huddle of tiny trees at least one of which was sporting a plastic bag. Village Boy leapt out of the van and bounded off shouting, white hare like, about time. I was following rather more sedately when Whole Foods Market caught my eye. I had never seen one before and I admit I snorted at the messages plastered on the windows…. but I went to have a look anyway.

I have numerous issues with supermarkets which I won’t go into here. Suffice to say I use them when I have to but they deeply irritate, even anger me. The packaging, the waste, the plastic are just a few of the niggles.

And yet, I was about to have a supermarket epiphany. Yes Whole Foods Market are my idea of supermarket heaven. If there have to be supermarkets, then let them be like this.

They have

Unwrapped lettuce and unpackaged olives…
Loose grains, rice beans and pulses
Loose tea & coffee beans.
Loose spices, herbs, dried fruits and nuts
A peanut butter making machine
oil on tap so you can refill your bottle

All of the above you can buy by weight in your own containers. This is common in the U.S. and Australia. They have bulk stores or bulk foods aisle in a grocery store. In this case it doesn’t necessarily mean buying huge amounts but buying loose and unpackaged.

BYO Bags

While the carrier bags at the check-out are paper, the rest of the packaging, the produce bags and bottles they provide, are all plastic so you would have to take your own compostable pots and reusable bags. Easily done – find out how here.

Tare

The weight of the bag will make a difference at checkout in the price per weight. The tare weight is the weight of the empty container. Whole Food Markets have weighing machines that allow you to do this yourself. It is very easy.

Lush

Whole Foods Market as it name suggests also has a organic eco criteria. This isn’t some giant Weigh & Save shop but a plush, lush shopping experience

Stores

Since then I have taken the opportunity to visits as many Whole Food Markets as I can.

Find A Store

They have stores in London, Cheltenham and Glasgow

I have taken photo journals which I have posted up on Facebook. Follow the links for

Please check that stock is available before you visit – the photos are quite old now and NOT ALL STORES ARE THE SAME. For instance Glasgow does Ecover refills Cheltenham doesn’t.

About

This American company have recently opened some flagship stores in the UK It is funky, good looking and challenging. It boasts impressive eco credentials. I wanted to know more so I emailed ahead asking if it would be OK for me to take photos next time I visited. Not only did they say yes, but Renata Rees, Marketing Team Leader, offered to meet me. An offer I eagerly accepted. You can read about it here

Find more loose food shops here

Lidles

20 May 2014 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.2.3 Supermarkets & Chains Tagged 3.1.3 bakery, 3.1.3 dried fruit and nuts, 3.1.3 Loose Food, 3.1.3 Sweets snacks & nibbles, 5 Content Veiw 2 Comments

Lidles is a chain of budget supermarkets. It offers some plastic free surprises. (Click the links to see a review and other options). Take your own bags

Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG (German pronunciation: [ˈliːdl̩]; UK: /ˈlɪdəl/ LID-əl), formerly Schwarz Unternehmenstreuhand KG, is a German global discount supermarket chain, based in Neckarsulm, Germany,[1] that operates over 10,000 stores across Europe and the United States.[2] It belongs to Dieter Schwarz, who also owns the store chains Handelshof and hypermarket Kaufland.

porridge oats in a paper bag

salt in a cardboard box

pistachios (take your own bag and scoop out as much as you want)

White rice in a cardboard box

Bakery section selling loose rolls and continental pastries. These are good value and pretty good – particularly enjoyed the pain au raisin. Again take your own bags.

Tissues, box of, without a plastic collar.

I haven’t tried these but they look promising;
bread mix flour with yeast already added just add oil and water, what sounds like plastic free corn flour and breadcrumbs in a box (no plastic crackle when squeezed).

Sadly most of the veg is plastic wrapped and all the meat and cheese.

I have not seen these myself but know a woman who has.

Here are some packaging less products from Louises Bayfield and her “POSTIVE PRODUCTS LIST (UK) a list of High Street and Supermar-ket products that have no packaging or in some way help reduce packaging.”

Butter – Paper

Bread, loaves and rolls – Bulk from Bakery – Very good selection

Breadcrumbs – Cardboard – Can anyone confirm there is no bag inside?

Bread Mixes, various larger bags – Paper

Cake Mixes, various – Paper – Seasonal item not always in stock

Cornflour – Cardboard – Can anyone confirm that there is no bag inside?

Doughnuts – Bulk from Bakery

Feta – Glass Jar

Fish Fingers and battered fish, MSC – Cardboard

Fruit and Vegetables – Reasonable selection of loose produce

Nuts, salted cashews, pistachios – Bulk bins – Take very light weight bags as no tare

Oats – Paper – Excellent value

Pastries, Croissants, Pain Au Choc and various Danishes – Bulk from Bakery

Pizza Slices – Bulk from Bakery

Rice, white – Cardboard

Salt – Cardboard

Washing powder, non-bio – Cardboard – No plastic scoop

Flat Breads and Maryam Bakery

8 June 2009 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged 3.1.3 bakery, 3.1.3 Loose Food, 3.2.2 West Yorkshire

Last year I gave up plastic wrapped bread – which was pretty easy, for English bread at least. However for middle eastern breads it’s a different story -pitta breads, lavoche and other types of flat bread are not to be bought in anything other than plastic wrappings. The husband hails from far off lands and often gets a yearning for the flat breads of his youth. It felt a little unfair to deny him the pleasure of a properly wrapped kebab, so I supposed that a special dispensation would have to be made for foreign bread.

But no more thanks to the arrival of Maryam Bakery on Blacker Road Huddersfield. They do four nan breads for a pound. They call them nans but they are in fact more of a Kurdish style flat bread. They are freshly baked and better than any plastic wrapped pittas or dusty dry lavoche.

And they come wrapped in paper… but you have to ask specially for that.

Find more yummy baked things at bread, buns and biscuits

Biscuits

20 January 2009 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged 3.1.3 bakery 8 Comments

There used to be a loose biscuit stall in Queensgate Market, Huddersfield. But the stall is long gone and the market has closed. The loss of resources like these is frought with issues.

You can still buy loose buns and cookies at bakers but to put in your tin….

Recycle Biscuit Wrappers

So what to do? Well, it’s not a perfect answer, but Mc Vities do run a biscuit wrapper recycling scheme. You save up the wrappers and post them off (for free with pre paid labels) and they get recycled. It’s better than binning them. In their own words

“McVitie’s has recently teamed up with recycling experts TerraCycle to launch the McVitie’s Biscuit Wrapper Brigade. Biscuit wrappers are recyclable, but very little mixed plastic recycling is carried out by local council kerb side collections, resulting in millions of biscuit wrappers being sent to landfill. McVitie’s and TerraCycle’s initiative – a first for the industry – encourages consumers to help end this enormous waste of resources by sending in their used biscuit wrappers to be recycled. For more information, visit www.terracycle.co.uk.”

Please note, you need to send shipments that weigh at least 0.12 kg -approximately 50 units of biscuit wrappers.

So if you can’t refuse, at least you can recycle…. more tea vicar?

Recycling

Recycling is not a perfect answer. It does not justify using a product, that lasts forever, to make a throwaway, so-called disposable items. You can read about why we don’t recycle plastic here.

Bread and bread machines

10 January 2008 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged 3.1.3 bakery, 3.2.4 cook book, 4 plastic2cut plastic, 4.1 plastic we use 1 Comment

Buy

As you know, most bread comes plastic wrapped. Unless you are lucky enough to have a local bakery, and don’t work office hours, this can be problematic for the plastic free.

I do get to choose my own hours so I can go shopping in the week, and we do have a local bakers – but there is still a problem.They put their bread in plastic bags. They do have paper bags for the buns but they don’t like using them for bread. Each time I ask, they tell me the bread doesn’t fit in a paper bag. It quite clearly does and has been proven to do so on previous occasions. It is, for whatever reason, an issue with them so I don’t push it.

Most supermarkets do unwrapped rolls and will let you use your own produce bags.

However man cannot live on barm cakes alone!

Make

So I bought a bread maker which is easy to use and the bread is fantastic. There are still some plastic elements – the milk powder comes in a plastic lined packet and the yeast is plastic foil wrapped but it is a small plastic price to pay compared to pre-packed bread.

Of course the breadmaker has plastic elements – but we don’t boycott all plastics. We think that there are some valid uses for the product ( gasp!! yes I know…you can read our reasons here). The breadmaker fits into the plastic products that reduce the use of plastic disposables category.

So now our bread needs are met with a combination of buns from the co-op, a run in with the bakery when I have the time and the stamina and homemade bread.

Speciality Breads get fantastic nan breads from Maryam Bakery

Find more yummy baked things at bread, buns and biscuits

Courses & Community Made Bread

Not only do these guys do scrummylicious bread which I totally recommend, they do it for a good cause!

All quotes are taken from the website….

“LoveBread is run by bakers and volunteers who love baking bread. We want to involve the local community in providing real bread for their community. ”

This not for profit organisation bake handmade artisan bread for sale in Ryecorn’s Wholefoods, Brighouse every day except Wednesday, Villa Farm Shop, Huddersfield on a Friday and Saturday and Ingfield Farm Shop, Southowram on a Friday and Saturday.

Learn to make Real Bread

Love Bread run regular workshops teaching the basics of making your first loaf to advanced techniques of shaping and flavourings. We also run courses and training sessions for community groups and schools.

All workshops are available to book online, visit our workshop page for more information. Our workshop vouchers are now available from the bakery, market stalls or email us for more information. We are now taking bookings for all our workshops, visit the workshop page for more details and to book your place.

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Tag Archives: 3.1.3 bakery