Zero Waste Grocery – a movement that makes a difference
Author: Arhaan Dholkawala
As climate change and global warming become more and more substantial and impactful to our everyday lives, it is becoming increasingly important to have reasons to set yourself apart from every other grocery store/chain and make a difference.
One of the important ways to do this is to join the Zero-Waste Grocery movement. Zero-Waste Grocery is making sure that every piece of packaging in the store is reusable.
However, this is easier said than done as reusable bags are the only Zero-Waste Grocery item that is partially incentivized by law. Other than that, giving out Zero-Waste Grocery items is unpractical and expensive.
That’s where Tare-Weight by Smart Vendor comes in with this system. Tare-Weight allows customers to bring their own reusable grocery containers and pay by weight, and the cool thing is that it can automatically remove the weight of the container, let people opt for SMS receipts, saving paper and minimizing BPA risk.
This will allow you to reduce carbon footprint, future-proof your business, and help customer loyalty by making your grocery store a preferred grocery shopping destination, building a strong environmentally conscious shopper community.
This, with a strong social media presence and sustainable products, can help your business be the preferred choice for many. And governments have even talked about a “Sustainability tax return” that would allow people and corporations to get tax returns and rebates for being 0 carbon, as the Paris agreement does require that.
Also, from a health standpoint, it’s more sanitary (especially during COVID-19) to bring your own containers rather than everyone touching the produce and bags.
In addition, a study on fast food conducted at Statistics Canada shows that bring your own reusable container can save a lot of money for even the biggest of chains.
Fast food sales in Canada in 2021 are $27.6bn (IBIS World, June 2021), and assuming every meal is around 10$, that’s 2.76 billion fast-food meals. Now think about the waste and cost of packaging produced from all of that fast food. Even if 10% of the customers bring sustainable containers, that 276 million meals worth of packaging is saved.
This is why bringing your own container (BYOC) combined with the Smart Vendor Tare-Weight can benefit both the business and the customer.