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from the well,-that's-certainly-different dept.
AlterNet reports
Forget plastic bag bans. Berlin is now home to a supermarket that's gotten rid [of all] disposable packaging. Original Unverpackt ("Original Unpackaged") [Google translation], which opened Saturday, is more of a shop, to be exact, but its 350-some products -- including from fruits, vegetables, dry grains and pourable liquids like yogurt, lotion and shampoo -- are dispensed into refillable containers. (Some liquids come in bottles with deposits on them, which is already standard in Germany).
The shop, backed by crowdfunding, is a creative experiment in a new kind of shopping, one that takes the ethics of stores like Whole Foods to a new level. It sells mostly organic products, each of which is labeled with its country of origin, and eschews brand names. Sara Wolf and Milena Glimbovski, the duo behind the project, were driven by the slogan[1] "Let's be real, try something impossible."
It remains to be seen if the store's scalable -- and whether it will catch on with the public. One "group of Germans" interviewed by NPR Berlin[2] complained that the store "looks too pretty and nice, and too bourgeois"; CityLab characterized such sentiments as reflecting a sense that "living a supposedly pared-down, less wasteful life is essentially a lifestyle hobby for people with enough spare cash to play at green dress-up." But while many of the products offered, perhaps because they're organic, tend to skew toward the pricier end of things, others are equivalent or cheaper than standard supermarket fare, one German newspaper reports [Google translation]. And a virtue of the fill-your-own-container model is that customers can purchase ingredients in exact amounts, meaning they don't have to overspend for food they don't need.
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Monday September 22 2014, @11:29AM
All the hate here makes me think SN is full of nerds who have been cozily lulled to sleep by the American agro-industrial marketing industry that has convinced you a disposable lifestyle is essential for your health and safety. There's room for innovation here, and leave it to the industrious and scientifically-inclined Germans to look into it.
I might not want to buy yoghurt in bulk, and I wand my chickens wrapped in something,, but there's no reason a lot of other things have to come in so much packaging. So much American food comes in layers and layers of unitizing packaging, all plastic. It's unsustainable, it leads to higher costs, and really shortsighted.
I agree healthy, organic, and ecologically-minded things remain somewhat of a luxury good, but it doesn't have to be that way. This is the way we all cooked and ate, once upon a time.
More science, less marketing, please! Also, more German bacon ... mmmm.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 22 2014, @01:01PM
I was raised by grandparents who grew up in the Great Depression; they always kept a large garden they used to grow nearly all their own produce, and we were dragooned even as small children to tend it. They taught us how to can, dry, and pickle anything we couldn't eat fresh. Since then I moved to the big city and live in an apartment with no yard, so those skills have fallen into disuse.
But I am starting to see concepts like urban gardening [urbanfarming.org], Local Dirt [localdirt.com], and 3Dponics [makerfaire.com] pop up and have begun thinking it might be possible for even apartment dwellers to grow some of their own produce. During the world wars when they had rationing Victory gardens were common, but those were really only practical if you had outdoor space to do it. Now with hydroponics, microcontrollers, and the Internet of Things you could really geek out on extreme locavorism. It has the lowest of all possible carbon footprints, you know exactly where the produce has been and what went into it, and as a bonus it usually tastes much, much better than stuff that gets picked to ship long before it's ripe. Prime example: tomatoes. Ones you get in the store are flavorless. Ones you grow yourself have amazing sweetness and complexity.
Combine it with aquaculture to make aquaponics [backyardaquaponics.com], and might even be able to supply some of your own protein.
Washington DC delenda est.