The Bulk Bar at PFGC

We are very excited to roll out our brand-new bulk home goods bar here at Piedmont! We're currently offering bulk hand and body soap, shampoo, conditioner, and all-purpose cleaning spray from Fillaree in Durham plus bulk cream deodorant from Little Seed Farm, a family-owned business based in Tennessee. These products are made with safe, natural, non-toxic ingredients that you and your family can feel good about using on your body and in your home, but also offer the secondary benefit of being refillable! I'm a firm believer that we should always be growing and learning here at PFGC, so we are venturing into something new with this zero-waste solution for our customers.

If you're not familiar with the zero-waste concept, it's as simple as this: designing and managing products and processes to systematically avoid and eliminate the volume and toxicity of waste and to conserve resources. Before you heave a sigh and expect a lecture from a tree-hugging do-gooder, know that perfection isn't possible here. Nobody can be perfectly zero-waste - living itself is a messy business and inherently means waste. But I believe we can all make small decisions and changes in our daily lives that cumulatively add up to big changes. Plastics and single-use convenience items have only risen to everyday prevalence over the last 70 or so years, before that everyone practiced the sustainable habits we are having to relearn now and they never gave it a second thought. We tend to gasp in horror at anything that threatens our perceived comfort, ease, and convenience in even the slightest way but are we really being that inconvenienced by slowing down and giving a moment's thought to the bottle of soap by the sink, the huge plastic jug of laundry detergent filling up the trash can, or the Ziploc bags we mindlessly throw away?  

And why should we care? I bet you already know about the garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean (estimated to be three times the size of France) along with all the terrifying statistics to keep you wide awake at night, but on a more micro-level, zero-waste saves you money. Anywhere from 10%-60% of what you pay for retail products is for packaging - which then goes in the trash. With our Fillaree and Little Seed products, we have glass and metal bottles and jars of their products you can buy the first time to give them a try and then continue to bring in those same bottles and jars to refill over and over again! Or bring your container from the very start, but either way, you're paying for the product, not for the container - good for you, good for the planet, and good for your wallet!

So the next time you're here at PFGC, ask for a tour of the bulk bar and we'll help you get started on your own zero-waste journey. If you're already a devotee of these products or were using them from Freehand Market in Saxapahaw (shout-out to Heather for offering us her guidance and insight on this), please give me your feedback on what scents and products you'd like to see us carry. And, before you recoil at the thought, please trust me, the cream deodorant is awesome! We can't wait to see you at the store this spring!