Come Join Our Team

Did you know that it is less than 9 weeks until we open!!!!

Now is the time for us to select and get to know our team so please watch the video by clicking the link below and then apply if you think you are the right fit for our store.

 

Wasteless Pantry recruiterThis video is about Wasteless Pantry recruiter

Posted by Manda Moo on Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Just to recap the points in the video:

  • We are looking for casual Sustainability Advocates/Retail Assistants for approximately 20 hours per week
  • You need to be invested in the Zero Waste and sustainability ideals
  • Local, have a sense of humour, friendly, caring, optimistic and able to help others change
  • Adaptable, trustworthy, physically fit and have high standards of personal hygiene
  • Work with us, not for us to effect real change

Send through your resume including sustainability and nutrition knowledge as well as a cover letter explaining why you want to work with us and what you believe will be the keys to the store’s success to info@wastelesspantry.com.au

We are looking forward to some great conversations on the 21st April 2015.

P.S.  Start date for employment is likely to be mid May 2015.

P.S.S. We are not expecting you to lift 25kg bags, just help move them around the store!


Our Guide to Sustainable Food Choices

eco-footprint-image

When did it become so hard to source and eat food without the guilt?

We worry about:

  • creating waste and landfill contributions
  • how far it has had to travel to our plate
  • how many preservatives and additives are in our food
  • allergens
  • animal cruelty and deforestation
  • whether it has been overly processed
  • just how much refined sugars and fats have been added
  • water use in production
  • how long and how it was stored before it was offered as ‘fresh’
  • food safety, especially given the latest berry health scare
  • whether it is nutritious at all any more
  • whether the kids or husband or wife will eat it
  • if it is supporting local farmers
  • if there are GMOs in it
  • if it is organic and if so certified organic
  • what the best deal for your money is
  • whether it was fairly purchased by the middle guy
  • and on and on it goes….

When did sourcing and eating our food suck all the flavour out of life?

A large part of why we are offering you this store is so that these complex and complicated decisions about your next meal can be made just a bit simpler.

Wasteless Pantry is about making it easy to shop and eat responsibly because sustainable is responsible.

We are all about “Progress not Perfection”, a term that we have seen a lot lately.  This means that we are trying our best and always looking to improve what we are doing so one step at a time.  When we open the store we will have sourced the best we can at that point. We will make mistakes, we will experiment and get it wrong, but we will continue to try to get it just a little better next time. And that is all we ask of you too.

So how do we decide what are our best food choices? Below is the Wasteless Pantry Guide to Sustainable Food Choices….

  1. Less packaging is our top priority.

At the Less is More Festival recently; the Eco Faeries sang a very catchy tune that included the line:

“There is no excuse for single use”

Whilst everyone there probably went to bed still singing this one line, it was a simple reminder of the priority we are working toward.

If you think about it, all the effort and resources that went into every single use product or package you buy and then throw away is the equivalent to getting a beautiful handmade quilt from someone dear and using it as a disposable napkin. Only in 10 years time at least the quilt would have composted back into the earth!

  • So this is our first decision making question – how can we minimize the waste?
  1. Local is always better.

Producing, sourcing and eating locally grown food is almost always a more sustainable option than sourcing further afield.

Grown to be eaten sooner, the food can ripen more naturally. It is grown to be transported a shorter distance so it doesn’t need to be as robust, and can be more flavorsome instead.   Local seasonal food is picked at its best and most nutritious so is more likely to be better for you.

And best of all, local food doesn’t need to travel huge distances to get to your plate. You might even get to know who grew it and how. Anyone involved in the frozen berry health scare can attest to how important that is. Brook ‘Sparkles’ Murphy at the Less is More Festival calculated that her green super food smoothie was produced with a massive amount of greenhouse gases due to where and how the ingredients were produced and sourced.

  • So this is our second decision making question – how local can we get this product?
  1. Organic where we can.

The effort that goes into growing the wonderful food we eat makes such an impact on our environment. Organically grown food is more sustainable than conventionally grown goods as there is fewer chemicals put into the environment and these farmers understand the importance of putting nutrients back into the soil.

There are concerns about the chemicals used getting into our bodies too. Of course the quality of the soil greatly impacts on the flavor and nutritional density of the food grown as well.

The thing is though, that a lot of organically grown foods are packaged wastefully to stop them being contaminated by conventional food. Doesn’t this strike you as interesting that the farmer would go to all that effort to care for the earth and avoid the use of chemicals, to then have the food packaged in something made of chemicals that threatens the earth?

  • So our third decision making question is – can we source it as close to organically as possible?

Having made these three decisions of sourcing the least packaged, most local and closest to organic product we can get there is one final question that we raise throughout the entire decision making process:

  • Is the food ethically produced?

Every effort is made to source options produced without animal cruelty such as avoiding uncertified palm oil. We also aim to offer Fair Trade products and those that support a fair price for farmers locally. We are also keen to support Rainforest Alliance initiatives.  Rainforest Alliance has a broad social and ecological mandate that spans many sectors including agriculture. For example, Coffee is one of the agricultural crops targeted by Rainforest Alliance programs. The coffee certification program is aimed at ensuring that coffee workers are paid fairly, treated with respect and that the crop they tend does not contribute to soil erosion, water contamination and forest destruction: the Rainforest Alliance seal means that both social and environmental values are respected.

There are so many other considerations that just haven’t made it onto our radar.

Mostly because once you follow these guiding questions your choice of what to eat next is reduced in such a beautiful way. It is not about which brand being advertised or which fad super food or diet to follow, or even about what that celebrity chef showed you on TV last night. It becomes about cooking seasonal goods that taste great and don’t come with a side of eco-guilt.

It becomes about getting the rubbish out of our kitchens and off our plates.

Like I said at the beginning this is a journey and we are just making one decision better each time.  Minimal waste, local, organic and ethical.
Are you coming with us? Let us know below or on our Facebook page.

Wasteless Ways: The Beautiful Pantry

“When you can find beauty in the mundane, that is where happiness lies.”

There may be more to life than a wasteless pantry.  There may be more beautiful things than a pantry which contains no advertising and instead only produce that will sustain and comfort you.  There may even be more satisfying things to do than to remove the rubbish from your pantry and replace it with organised shelves filled with goodness. But then I guess that depends on your perspective.

Whichever way you lean it is easy to see how a wasteless pantry aids in creating the life you want.

Here are just a few reasons:

  1. An organised pantry means that you save time, money and food by not buying doubles that then expire before you use them.
  2. Sealed containers minimise bug infestations and food going stale.
  3. It is easier to track what you need when you can see the contents of your staple containers decreasing.
  4. As you can easily find food in your pantry, it is easier to plan meals from what you already have.
  5. When you look at your organised pantry you are more likely to be inspired to cook from scratch all the goodies you have already on hand, instead of giving up and ordering takeout.
  6. You are more likely to be able to avoid preservatives, have fresher staples on hand and will be able to control the content of the food you eat.  Less sugar, less processed food, less allergy risk, less unknown entities in your food.
  7. Once you have transitioned to containers you will find it much easier to keep your pantry clean, tidy and in good working order.
  8. It will be easier for others to help you in the kitchen!!!
  9. Wasteless pantry items take up less space and have the potential to become full of a greater variety of food.

There are far more reasons than that but it gives you a starting point.

A wasteless pantry is more than being about waste.

It is about living a sustainable, simpler and easier existence; filling your life only with those good things you choose.

Head over to the Facebook page and let us know your reason for wanting a wasteless pantry, or share a picture to inspire others!

c3772ec4d6c5614d9db22afcd1d58962 dd566b01ed1a72f059224a4f247973e1 ZWH pantry pretty_pantry_2renest pantry-closet-amazing-closet-to-pantry-conversion-with-large-wicker-storage-baskets-and-antique-glass-kitchen-lighting-fixtures-545x696 Dollar-Store-Beautiful-Pantry zero waste pantry draw jars side angle jar jars