Farm To Pantry Products: Pantry Goods to open new low-waste storefront in April

Pantry Goods, a low-waste Kansas City grocery subscription service, is opening a storefront on 39th street in early April, partnering with KC Tiny Greenhouse, Soap Refill Station KC and Green Utopia. 

The new store will feature all items from their online catalog, with the addition of the best selling items from each store they’re partnering with. 

The Pantry Goods delivery service — which has been available in KC since last January 2020 — will still be available to customers alongside the launch of the storefront. The delivery dates are based on zip codes, with some delivery dates consolidating when the new storefront opens.

Junior Jake Foil and his family started receiving deliveries from Pantry Goods last June. Foil is excited for the new storefront, though he’s not sure if his family will visit the storefront often due to its distance from the Prairie Village area. 

“I think it [will be] convenient for a lot of people throughout the community,” Foil said. “I think there is a delivery fee, so if you don’t want to pay that delivery fee, it’s good to have it there for you to go pick up.”

While most low-waste grocery stores feature bulk bins where customers tare and fill their own containers, the Pantry Goods Market will only feature pre-packaged items in glass jars or paper bags, with the exception of the meats. According to Marcelle Clements, owner of Pantry Goods, this idea was decided on based on convenience factors and COVID-19. Clements believes the future of zero-waste is returnable packaging, rather than having consumers bring their own containers, which can be time consuming. 

COVID-19 was a large factor in committing to pre-packaged goods — the self-scoop bulk bins at Whole Foods and Sprouts have been closed for over a year now.

“I really don’t see COVID-19 going away,” Clements said. “We’ve been warned a few times, because of our rising population, that this is probably not the first or last pandemic that we’re going to experience. So [bulk bins] just doesn’t seem like a sanitary solution.”

Pantry Goods Market is selective with its produce, only selling from organic, sustainable and local farmers. Most of the produce is only available for limited times, such as the strawberries, which are only available during May and June. According to Clements, transporting foods long distances, such as Mexico or California, isn’t possible without the use of plastic because it’s essential for preventing produce from spoiling quickly. 

“I think a lot of people think, ‘Oh, plastic! [There’s] so much of it! It’s silly!’— as it is,” Clements said. “But when it comes to food, if we didn’t use plastic, there would be so much more food waste, and we’re really having a huge, huge problem globally, [with] food waste.”

Pre-packaged products from Soap Refill Station KC, a bulk soap and cleaning supply store in Waldo, will also be available at Pantry Goods, along with food storage goods and plants from Green Utopia and Tiny Greenhouse KC. 

Soap Refill Station KC will have pre-packaged cleaning staples, such as hand and dish soap, body wash, laundry detergent, bath bombs and face masks. Soap Refill Station KC specializes as a bulk store where customers can fill their own containers. As of March 13, Soap KC has refilled over 20,500 bottles with their products. 

Green Utopia is a women-owned homegoods store that focuses on stocking products that are either eco-friendly or reusable and are maker-made, with only about 25% of the goods sold coming from manufacturers, according to owner Gabriella Sanders.

“I’m just ready to work with the community,” Sanders said. “That would be my favorite thing I can’t wait for.”

Clements worked with SCORE KC and the Small Business Development Center of America for several years before opening the delivery service to refine the concept. She was able to work with mentors to analyze the cost of running a low-waste store. She also talked to other low-waste stores around the world, from Vancouver, Canada to Cape Town, South Africa, where Clements is originally from. 

Through the process, she realized that the space they’d been touring at the time was too big for them. Instead, Clements decided to open Pantry Goods as an online store to test if there was enough demand in Kansas City before fully opening up a storefront.

“It just feels like the next step for us,” Clements said. “We may outgrow the space in a year or two, or it might be five, we’re not sure. We’re just starting small.”

Clements wanted to create more options for consumers to shop low-waste.  

“I’ve always had this desire to do more, when it came to sustainability here,” Clements said. “There was nothing like [this] in Kansas City. I just thought, ‘Well, let me really try and do something that helps people at least have options.’ I feel like there’s very few options when it comes to reducing your waste, especially when it comes to food.”

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 23% of materials sent to landfills are packaging and containers. 

While Clements believes that there are many actions consumers can do to reduce their waste, she also believes that the blame shouldn’t be on the consumer. Instead, it’s important to pressure companies and lawmakers to form policies that hold companies accountable for that 23%. 

“It’s also difficult sometimes because it’s all political because people don’t want to vote on different things,” Clements said. “But, there are definitely solutions that we can implement. I think people just need to be brave, and they need to realize that this is a challenge. It’s a problem and it’s impactful and it’s not going away.”