Plastic-free groceries: fruits and veggies

Simple ideas for the Plastic Free July

There is not a single fruit or vegetable that I haven’t seen being packaged in plastic even though other places sell the same product plastic-free.

EU is banning single use plastic in 2021, but food packaging is exempt from this environtally improve friendly move. The responsibility for shopping environmentally friendly falls once again solely onto the consumers.

We as consumers have some wiggle room to shop more zero waste produce, even though it’s not easy for sure. The legislation and the efforts on the business side need to catch up with the reality of the disastrous impact of single use plastic on the environment.

I found the packaging of fruits and veggies in Japan pretty scary. Here are some impressions of an organic supermarket in Tokyo. Organic store are usually at least trying to sell produce in as little packaging as possible. The reason being that there is no mix up possible and no need to separate organic and non-organic produce.

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3 hacks for shopping plastic-free produce

Organic and health food stores

My first hack for shopping zero-waste would be to go to organic stores or health food stores. Those are usually not more expensive than regular supermarkets if you buy organic anyways.

Farmers’ Markets

Farmers market are usually also a great source of zero waste produced. Of course only if you go to a real farmers market the farmer sells their own produce stop at some farmers market you will find just the resellers to buy from our bulk store and sell the fruits and veggies prepackaged.

If you are a regular customer at the farmers market and like to buy in bulk, you can talk to the farmer. Ask for a more environmentally friendly bulk packaging. They usually would be more than happy to sell you a bigger box of berries without having to pack the berries into small plastic container. You might get a sizable discount as well.

Choosing a plastic free options

Sometimes you can get exactly the same product but package free. It’s always worth it to look around they kitchen unpackaged produced might be located in different places so it’s not so easy to spot.

I also tried to remember what places sell my favorite produce fruits and veggies plastic free and plan my shopping trip accordingly. In Germany for example, discounters will have organic bananas wrapped in plastic or have a plastic sticky tape around them and the organic stores were usually half bananas just with some stickers but no plastic.

The plastic is not just horrible for the environment, but also takes time to remove, which is super annoying if I buy bigger quantities of bananas. I can save me some struggle and also pollute the environment a little bit less.