Earth911 Podcast: How Zero-Waste, Local Bulk Food Delivery Can Work

The future of the food supply can be more regional and sustainable. Stephanie Hughes recently launched Raw Bulk Foods Online, an Australian source of zero-waste foods delivered from the farm to the customer’s door. “We exist to clean up the planet [by] delivering your everyday pantry items direct from Aussie farms to your door minus all the junk,” Stephanie explained as part of the company’s Kickstarter campaign. While not a sustainable choice for U.S. shoppers, because of the overseas shipping involved, Raw Bulk Foods Online is another model for regional approaches to augmenting our food supply.

Now that shoppers are shifting their purchasing to foods grown nearer to home and abandoning traditional packaging for environmentally responsible alternatives, Raw Bulk Foods is a useful model for U.S. startups. Stephanie’s team spent a year developing the production and packaging processes they use, which includes a refill program that eliminates single-use waste, before they funded their launch on Kickstarter. Raw Bulk Foods Online raised seven times the $7,335 needed to start shipping food in June of this year. Crowdfunding can be a fast path for launching sustainable alternatives to traditional products and services. You can learn more at rawbulkfoodsonline.com.