Hey everyone, and welcome back to practically zero waste a podcast for making zero waste living as practical as possible. Welcome to episode 27. Oh, yeah, if you're enjoying this podcast, I want to invite you all again to leave a rating or review on Apple podcast. You just scroll down to the bottom and there it is. I love hearing what you think of the show and it helps me to get a sense of the kinds of content. People are most interested in so keep those reviews coming the podcast has an email address. So if you want to ask a question or just say hello, that's practically zero waste at gmail.com. And of course if you're interested in Supporting our little ad free podcast. You can go to Anchor dot f m / practically zero waste and hit the support button. I am so excited to share today's episode with you and interview with Dina Stein the founder of bear Market in Toronto all of other companies ethical and sustainable packaged read body and home care products amazing. We talked everything from making low-waist living accessible and affordable to that Ultra satisfying sound of shaving your legs with a stainless steel safety razor. Oh the pleasures of living waste-free. Tell me a little bit about yourself and what Life like before bear Market. What were you up to for Bear Market? I was a across sectors related to two stems and developing social Enterprises, but were you doing we worked with the public sector? So we worked with food policy councils across Ontario. We worked with universities. We worked with lots of different places. Why am I not thinking of any of them at the moment because I wasn't the important part of this conversation. You know, how do we create more effective efficient culturally appropriate food secure? Systems in place. Oh my God, Carla South what the organization we were working with? That's fantastic. There's a lot of people working on sustainable Food Systems one in Toronto and across the country. It's actually good systems in general is really my passion and my area of expertise I would say and there's a lot of cool things going on and what I really like about food is that it brings people to the table. Everyone has something to say about food and it's kind of in a in starter to you started bear Market tell me a little bit about what it is and where the idea came from. So bear Market is Toronto's One-Stop shop for package free Goods. We offer affordable and locally sourced DIY ingredients home care products body care products, and eventually we'll also have food in bulk and basically as we've been looking for the perfect permanent location. We've been popping up around the GTA 3 for almost a year now actually just to bring back. Country Goods to neighborhoods all over the city that's brilliant to do a pop-up. I hadn't thought of doing that. Most people just go for kind of an online route. I would say pop-ups are probably a little bit more complex. Reason we're doing the pop-up model is because we want a permanent location and the pop-ups allowed us to do market research to say these are the areas in Toronto where people are interested and it allowed us to talk with our potential future customers and say what are the things you like? What are the things you don't like, how can we make this more accessible for you and really start to get to know people the pop-up model so that allows you to go just about anywhere one of the main areas that you go to is we started last summer mostly at As markets around the GTA nice and then we also reached out to Patagonia Toronto and basically like built the business case so why they should let us come and pop up in their space, you know, where values aligned companies and we kind of spells it out for them and they really didn't need us to spell it out for them. They are absolutely in love with what we're doing and really wanted to support us in any way and so we've been popping up at Patagonia basically every other week since July and will continue to do that moving. Forward but instead of every other week, we're moving it towards a month. That is so cool. My goodness. What a great partnership. Actually, they've been the sole reason we are around at the moment. There are number one biggest supporters and then either on par or just below them and we have a ton of volunteers that support bear market and we couldn't do it without either of those two main parties. That's awesome. So where did the idea even come from in the first? is to go from your earlier career to this well, so when I was Doing undergrad degree. I was living in. in studying at UBC just studying. In fact of sustainable agriculture and health and Community Development and I discovered the soap dispenser e which is basically a dedicated refill shop customers reduce their waste. So this was in 2012. It's the first shot that I know of that offered package free bulk goods and they basically have everything we currently have. So DIY ingredients body care and home care products in bulk since then just recently in the over the last year. They have expanded. Also stock food items as well, which is really exciting. I really love this idea of refilling and ditching single-use plastic and it was really an easy way to create positive environmental impact and then also keep check of ingredients that I was putting on my body. That was something that was really important to me back then and it still continues to be I think I'm a little bit more knowledgeable about what what is and isn't something to worry about now, but I'm certainly I'm still interested in that and so I basically just really loved the fact that it felt so accessible to me, even though it wasn't physically accessible it ended up being a lot more financially accessible compared to the traditional products. I was seeing at Grocers really stores. Yeah, because you're only buying what you need. So yes you got on there and you can get you know, 4 liters of shampoo, or you can go and you can get two tablespoons of shampoo and we operate the same way. It's you. Only paying for what you get and because they're getting it in bulk. Sometimes those stores are able to offer you lower pricing. That is so brilliant. And you know what? I don't think that I've heard of other than you now and the soap dispensary any places that are selling body care products exclusively in bulk. So there's lots of places now that are offering package free bulk food and some places that are offering maybe dish soap or maybe shampoo, but Offer things like charcoal powder and all the things to make your own makeup and we have 450 products. At least. I haven't done a fillable makeup and hair gel to you know, beard oil safe bleach laundry powder air freshener DIY. So like carrier oils essential oils just Butters wax and the list goes on and on and on we're really trying to be your One-Stop. Shop for anything package for you? That's so phenomenal to because so many people there zero waste solution is to just make it themselves. But if the make it themselves ingredients are coming and packaging then maybe it's coming in less packaging than if you were to buy it in a bottle every single time, but it's still not enough of a difference for some people and so they're not making a profit product really add up if you're getting each of your Ingredients. Oh, yeah, that's a lot of packaging. Each one is coming in. But yeah, a lot of people do turn 2D iying to help them reduce waste I would say that's not the most accessible thing for everyone not everyone has the time to be able to create their own for the insurance or the skill like yeah exactly. Actually effective. Yeah, it's enough. It's certainly an affordable option for those who have the ability to invest in time in it. I love that does bear Market adhere to other values as well. I don't know like ethical fair trade anything on top of being packaged free never been asked it frame that way so we don't Don't specifically label ourselves with any sort of claims or certifications that we must abide by. Can I tell you a little bit about how we Source our products absolutely. So basically all of our bulk body care and home care products and DIY ingredients are reviewed by a third-party cosmetic chemist. Her name is Jen novakovich. I really hope I met her last night and she is the founder of the Eco well and And I really appreciate what she does because everything every bit of insight. She gives his based on in science but is also has a bit of a sustainability slant. She is a podcast too doesn't she she does she does have podcast. So what she does is she we hire her and she reviews all of the ingredients and all of our products before we go through purchasing them and she tells us the environmental social or economic impacts any negative ones if there are any Close ingredients and from there we decide whether we're going to move forward with that product with whether we're going to move forward with the supplier. And if we do, sometimes we reach out to them and we say hey where we really want to Source this product from you. We're not loving this specific ingredient. Is there something we can do to either admit it all together. If it doesn't affect the quality of the product replace it with something that is a little bit more sustainable. That's incredible. Yeah. We do a lot of research. Yeah, that's very thorough trying to do all the research. Research so our customers don't have to we really want to make things too. As parents we want to be like a source of trustworthy information and we're not going to be that if I'm just looking up on blogs what is and isn't sustainable and what isn't isn't you know healthy? Oh my gosh, that's brilliant. So what kind of negotiations have you had with manufacturers as well? If you have reached out directly to manufacturers, how do you even negotiate the package free option as well as all of your other standards? Yeah. That's it. A really long and complex sort of conversation. We have it's always a dialogue. It's never like, you know, we want this and if you don't do it, we're not purchasing from you is just exactly yeah, you know, we're on this mission to do this you have some products that we think are really great. We want to support you because you're a local producer. How can we work with you to move us? Both towards producing less waste I would say a lot. People are really responsive to that and a lot of suppliers also want to make change with say less. So, you know larger Distributors who are just re selling other people's products, but if you go straight to the source people are very willing to at the very least look into their systems and see if they can accommodate us. That's wonderful. And and if you're going to local businesses to their, you know, possibly going to be more receptive to it as well because you don't have to go through thousands of Levels of bureaucracy within your company in order to make that call. You're allowed to say yeah, we could present the business case for why a larger company we should want to manufacture and produce in this way. But especially the last few months. My time has become a bit more limited. And so yeah, I don't have the capacity for that. But more importantly we want to support local producers. Anyways, yeah, and yeah, it's just really a win-win-win I would I think that's so great who's producing things like shea butter and Beeswax locally, like what are some of your top suppliers? But specifically those products we don't get locally beeswax. We will eventually hopefully within the GTA and not just ontario-based but really really hyper local. Wow, shea butter is from Ghana. Yeah. So a lot of our DIY ingredients are not locally procured simply because they're not in nature here exactly. Are Canadian made it was creepy and gradients are not Canadian made their Source through a Canadian distributor. Yeah. Oh my goodness. You are just boost in the Canadian economy. Well done. So are you operating with a pretty small staff or like you're talking about all of this kind of sourcing products as well as Manning these booths these pop-up boots every single week or every other week. Is it all you? Yeah, we're stuff of one. Oh my God, you're incredible and it's interesting though because A hundred percent rely on volunteer work at the moment and it's not a model that I love or subscribe to. Of course. If we had the financial ability to Value people's time and effort the way that we think they should be valued. We would be operating this a little bit differently, but the hard reality is where small start-up we have no outside funding and we have no ability to based on our pop-up shop model support anyone let alone myself like I still don't pay myself. Especially because we're so very much volunteer-based. I just it feels it doesn't feel right to pay myself and not you really credible. You're amazing. He's doing it just go for it. They that you and eventually eventually the money will come but I love that you're doing this out of a passion and it's not that weird. the ability it's not consistent enough to have someone on staff exactly. Yeah, and eventually looking into employment social Enterprise models to see if we can move in that direction. How far away is the brick and mortar store? If you feel like saying lease negotiations for a few weeks now women One particular spots, but of course that could fall through any second. Yeah, we always have our eyes out for potential spots in the area. So we're interested in and you know, our original goal was to be open in the summer 2019. That's not going to happen right now. We could maybe squeeze it for fall perhaps September or October but it just really depends on how quickly we can get through these negotiations. Yeah, who is your audience currently where? Ideal spot to set up shop. Yeah, they're different question. Yeah, so our audience is largely women. Yeah, what I found from doing these pop-up shops is that we had an idea of who our demographic might be then we realized it's actually much more expensive than what we thought. So we get people that are 13 years old and like 70 years old that come by our pop-up shops awesome and everywhere in between of all race Creed National like I would because they're just so And you know, it's the first time that people have seen something like what we're doing. Hmm. It's at the scale that we're doing it at. Yeah, I think what we're trying to do is make it feel easy to create a little bit of behavior change in your own life. And so when people come to us and see what we're doing, they feel that oh if I just like bring my own container or borrow one of yours and fill up a little bit like I'm making that one piece of environmental impact in my purchasing behaviors and in my life. And you know, they can feel proud of that. Yes. I know it's a bit of a tangent. So our demographic is largely women. I it's really hard for me to set an age because we really do get everything and every anything. Yeah, probably concentrated 20 to 35 year olds, but in terms of location like we get customers from all over the GTA and Beyonds, yeah, so when we did a pop-up shop of few months Go at Providence Healthcare, which is Sinclair and okay. They're just in Scarborough. We had people come from Peterborough. Yeah, it's me. Is it hot it wasn't me. But that's where I live. It was two sisters and their mother had taken off work because that was the first time that we were were somewhat close to where they lived for the day just to fill up. So people are coming from everywhere when we go to the wow, and we're we're looking for and the reason is that we feel that the West End has quite a bit of access already to refill assets. Okay, the East End has a similar demographic of interested people, but Very limited refill asset and certainly no all in one stop for package free Goods. I mean I still feel that nowhere in the city has that we're excited by the number of businesses that are popping up and you know getting on the bandwagon, of course, I think it's so exciting that you want to be. I mean, it also seems really smart from a business side of things, but it's so good to make these products accessible to people in a part of town that maybe wouldn't have found it before so that's wonderful. Yes ability both financial and physical accessibility. Are two of our most important tenets and values of are markets. So in the beginning when we were doing our pop-up shops, We Made It part of our location scouting for these pop-ups that we had to view spaces that were not well resource. So at the time we were specifically looking at areas that didn't have a lot of food Assets in the immediate vicinity. Oh my God my background being in food and the fact, you know food security is really important. A topic that I had is a bear market and so, you know, we went to the Melbourne farmers markets and number of times. We went to the doctor's Finch Community Hub Farmers Market a number of times and that was specifically to bring these Goods to areas that don't have otherwise don't have access to them. It wasn't because we were going to make a huge amount of profit in that area. Not that we really did at any of our pop-up specifically the farmers market ones, but because we really thought it was important to Increase access want to see more of that because it's not it's not the areas that have access to a Whole Foods or anything that has, you know, any sort of bulk package free Goods. It's areas that only have access to Fresh go or no frills not to say that they don't have unpackage things. Just talking about food in general as an entryway for buying package free, but they offer quite a bit less package free and so it's not accessible to buy things without waste, but it's also not accessible. Buy things cheaply without waste and so to be able to access or put yourself out into these kinds of areas even especially with your pop-up shops because it allows you to have a lot more Mobility. I think it's awesome. Are you going to continue to do pop ups after you get your brick-and-mortar store? Once you have a staff of like 30 and you can you know, distribute the Lamppost very least maybe once every two months. But our pop-up shops are a labor of love. They are a lot of work. So we get all of our many of our bulk liquids in 20 liter containers. Oh my gosh, you fall back. So that's all in our storage space and then we pour them from those containers or whatever containers they come in into four liter or two liter glass jugs with comes on them. And so that Process of filling those containers alone takes me two full days and then glass jars are quite heavy liquid in them are even heavier and then we pack them into my car with like we Tetris we play Tetris in there and get every single little thing in it's absolutely Madness. We post some stories on Instagram. Sometimes I can send you one Ethan I will totally take those out and and then we drive them to these locations. I mean that's not exactly in line with our values either. It's not the most carbon efficient way to okay. No one's No One's Gonna tell you to bike your stuff over in terms of time and energy that it takes to do that. Yeah, it's it's a lot. So instead, I mean I got it would be great to have a pop up at Patagonia every so often but we're going to focus on On the permanent location and then online distribution. So hey just last week. We launched our online store. Woohoo. Yeah, it was a long time coming and it's wonderful work. So we're really excited to see it finally come to fruition. And right now we only have non bulk Goods on there. So basically our lifestyle Essentials to help you reduce waste so, you know replacements for disposable razors, which would be like your safety razor and you know plastic It free dish brushes and Willie brushes and stuff like that. Not things that people necessarily have to consume. We certainly don't want people to just buy things on our story because it's a package restore and they're like I can reduce waste by buying this. No, thank you so much for saying that because I hundred percent of supporting this store in this Enterprise, but I also strongly disagree that you need to buy anything in order to be zero waste. And so I love that. You're saying that continued its kind of contradictory as a business were in this really tricky space where we have to balance covid. Okay. Well, we need people to buy some things so we can live exactly. Yeah, and then we don't want them to buy things. They don't need but how do we get that message across? Yeah. It's very shop with us, but don't shop unless you have to shop yet. So we really encourage people that if they Have items that are perfectly good for like in relatively. Okay, working condition hold on to them because the most sustainable thing you can do is use your products until the very end. Yeah, and basically when it's time to dispose of that product to compost it to recycle it to donate it. Then were there for a more sustainable option to replace that item. Don't come to us beforehand. Yeah. Do you have a sense of what it will look like to buy things in bulk online, correct? Non bulk items I think relatively soon hopefully in the next month or so we can phase in bulk powders. So like laundry powder charcoal activated charcoal facial cleansing grains. We have that are powder. There's a few things we can because it's easier to distribute those say in the plastic on the plastic bag. Wow in a paper bag. It's okay. Not call ourselves a zero waste or we don't use that framing. We are packaged free store, which is not always completely literal. But basically we don't believe that as an individual or as a small business of our size be zero waste. It's not feasible. It's not crappy very astute continue. Yes, so we don't want to call ourselves that because it's not transparent and it's basically lying. But anyways, I digress Exactly in the same way that we might want to do it. Yeah, it's very complex. First of all, the one thing that we need to take into account is how do we do? Liberty is Goods in a container that's not going to break and it's not going to be too heavy or else. It's no longer feasible because shipping and Canada super expensive and even when the customer doesn't pay for it. We absorb it and basically there's no such thing as free shipping. But anyways, it's more about how do we then get that container back from the customer clean? It sanitizes it and refill it and then send it up again. It's a huge operation a and originally we could have gone the route of doing online distribution. Ian, you know get a warehouse space and that's that's what we would focus on. I just feel that it's really important to move towards. How do I say this? Basically bear Market is trying to nudge Behavior change and I don't think that just doing online delivery in someone receiving a package the next day with some refill soaps is enough to incentivize them to want to change their behavior over the long term. Yeah, so they may have At once and they may have been like oh, yeah, that was cool. But what's incentivizing them to keep doing that same behavior and I have this inkling of a feeling that if we can have a physical space that's a community space where we have workshops and classes that people can come together around these topics and have a story to tell and no have pictures to share of the space and what they did there that will lead towards Sustained Behavior change and really that's what we need to address. The larger issues that we're facing. I like that too. And behavior change is something that we're talking a lot about on the podcast. Just trying to encourage people to make these everyday changes that are going to stick don't do something dramatic like throw it all your things to say that you're a minimalist because then you're going to continue to accumulate things in the same patterns that you were before. But if you are everyday making little changes and Having them stick in your mind. So learning how to make this product from home and buying all of the bulk ingredients that you need package free from bear Market. You're going to continue or from anywhere but like it's an incredible resource to have and you're going to continue to make these Behavior changes over time because oh you've run out of this product and you have to make more than you can order more from bear Market because you had a good experience right like to be able to change your mindset. Is going to be way more valuable than if people just try a sample and never pick it up again. Yeah, so we were talking about some other similar kinds of shops. They're not quite doing what you're doing. But do you have anybody who's inspiring you? And kind of like the low waist community at all lately. Yes, they are. Just amazing and I haven't been back in Vancouver since 2015 and I'm sure they've grown immensely. I keep seeing them in the papers. I'm not sure how they're keeping up with demand. I'm sure that's probably struggle for them, but they're certainly a company that I look up to across the country. There's a lot of really small businesses popping up all across Canada, you know. Waterloo and in Sarnia and dinner really at there's these amazing refill spaces pattern coming to fruition or have all actually already opened were the last ones probably not the last but will be more of course and there he doesn't want to. Of different businesses getting on the train, you know what? I mean? Like it shouldn't just be us and it's not just us there's others and that's so amazing to see me. Hope that grows and grows. I think it will there's CBC was just interviewing unboxed the other week and so unboxes and new package free focused store that is in food. There there big thing right now is packaged free milk. You can just get Milk, which is really cool. Yeah, it is. Again is a tricky word. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little tricky. I mean to bring up the point of milk like those coming 20 liter 10 liters six litre plastic bag. So it's not zero waste, but it's certainly low waist and it's certainly helping people reduce waste and I think that's what's important. Yeah. I think you're right because I think even this podcast is called practically zero waste it trying to make zero waste practical but it's also acknowledging the fact that zero waste isn't You can't fully do it because even the big names like be a Johnson Lauren singer. They're not creating no waste they're still you know, producing a mason jar full or whatever. So like bulk stores Bulk Barn here in Canada and bear market and I'm boxed all of these places are creating some waste because they have to receive their goods in some fashion and the system isn't perfect yet that you send back containers to be refilled and they send it back to you and so zero waste is a misleading term. I don't want it to stop people because it's also an inspiring term to try and work towards that. Yeah, and I think as long as we're exactly you know, I think the Lauren singers of the world. I think that image of having a mason jar full of trash. Can I think that can be a barrier to a lot of people think it is? Yeah, you know, they think how could I ever only for you so much trash and then they'll never even try it so that mason jar analogy. I don't love Stephen gets a little bit debilitating towards getting people to jump on the movement or like the everyday consumer to jump on the movements. Yeah. Yeah sustaining. Your change is so key in this entire operation whether it's just on the you know, individual level or if it's on an industrial level Behavior change is what's going to keep us going. Yeah. I like the tricky conversation Underneath It All That We're Not really talking about but we're kind of getting at yeah, this stuff is like yeah, it's scary to change Behavior change. So we need to take it one step at a time and it doesn't need to be scary. It can be fun. It can be Like oh, wow, I can fill up on cleanser and I can purchase what I need and that helps me budget and all this other things practical and it's kind of fun. You know, you get to share that story with someone that's kind of cool. Uh, yeah the whole bigger conversation about how yeah reducing your single-use plastic is important. It's going to keep that at a landfill is going to keep it out of the ocean. It's going to keep it out of the, you know Woods near your house, but that's not the only thing that we can be doing. I think that a lot of people maybe get overwhelmed by the fact that you know climate change is reality and it's happening and you know the planets heating up and the ocean levels are rising and you know, we're all kind of doomed but we're not because there's things that we can do and people making those tiny little changes everyday like reducing your waist and you know learning how to be more eco-friendly is the solution on an individual scale. I think I love that you've brought that up because that's so important. Important to us to you know, a package free store can have a direct impact on the amount of plastic pollution that shows up in our oceans and in our backyards, but to me, it's so much more than that. You know, I wasted actually this really fantastic leaver to nudge Behavior change around a number of other sustainability and social issues at all levels of the supply chain. And I personally these are issues that I think are more important than plastic. But yeah, there's some of the ones that you just mentioned So I think our hope is that will encourage consumers to consider where their goods are coming from and the economic and the social and the environmental systems that make that all possible and then make it easier for them to do something about it. Yeah, make it practical. What are some of your favorite products that you guys offer a bear Market Ghost like the hold up shoes or yeah. Yeah name name a few that you actually use on a regular basis and also like a handful that are just really cool that that's offered in bulk. Okay, so the plastic fruit dish brush I've been using for a very long time. Yeah are the bristles even plastic free? Yes. So there's two options one of them are horse hair bristles and the other ones are at Tampico fiber, which is a plant. Okay? Excellent. That one's a little bit more abrasive. So I originally bought mine in Vancouver. Yeah at the stuff dispensary and I had the Tampico fiber bristle first and I had it up until this year. Wow. That was like six. And a half years. I had it under it now. I keep it's a replaceable head. I keep it in the bathroom and I use it to scrub down the bath and now I put on a horse hair bristle and I'm using that although I like that one better dish brush really like that. That's great and use it every day. Yeah dish soap also not glamorous. Yeah. What are you a safety razor is probably one of my favorite products. It's a bit of an investment up front are razors cost anywhere between $20 and $56. Yeah, I think I paid forty for my first one and we'll only one. Yeah, it's it. The blades are dirt cheap. Yeah, so you're going to be saving money within the first year and it's such a nice shave. That sound it made. Yeah, it's like yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, if you've if you've used a safety razor, you know, it's got to go down in the book of awesome. It's a good feeling. That's great. Free production line where she makes children's clothing and then the off scraps from that clothing line. She uses to make the largest pads and then the off scraps not she makes the smaller pads and goes down and down in size until you get to our reusable facial Ram size and then getting scraps that are smaller than that. She stuffs into dog beds and donates to the Humane Society. That's amazing. That's really cool that takes a lot of planning. Yeah, I mean it's all so yeah, I mean you're getting the most out of your money and I think it's better to wonderful else. Do I use? What are they called the beeswax wrap? So use those all the time? Yeah, which do you carry a certain brand that's local or weapon. We carry a brand called orthology. They're made in sure. I want what I really love about this company is their commitment towards sustainability. So they have a beeswax version and a vegan version and just to give an example. They're vegan version the waxes that they use for that are not from Ontario. They're not even necessarily from Canada their those DIY ingredient Products that come from wherever around the world in comparison to their beeswax, which they get from like a local apiary and they like stream at themselves and it's super sad local beautiful. Can stuff they actually paid for carbon offsetting for those ingredients. It's just like yes. Oh my gosh. Okay. Obviously, I'm going to put all of the information for all of these products and companies that you've mentioned today in in our show notes. But like that is really cool. That's right. That's why you have hundreds of different options because everybody's going to want to use something slightly different but I love hearing your real person reviews of those ones that you like. What are the coolest products? Oh totally. Yeah. No. Wait. What was your question? I was gonna say what's the coolest stuff that you offer, but I'll get to that. No, I think Is it how cool I think it's really cool? Okay, I think our coolest product is our line of bulk makeup. And yeah reason I think that okay. So we have a liquid foundation mineral foundation Tinted Moisturizer liquid concealer lip balm blush bronzer eyeshadow color corrector brow color and probably some others and missing we have those all in bulk. They are Canadian made. Or mineral-based and they're 45 to 65% off the same brand in a retail store this really cute like a little bit please do - I'm not even a person that you like a teaspoon of if I want it exactly and not get the you know, the packaging that's associated with it, but also not get the prescribed amount that comes in a prepared packaging product in a normal store. Have to commit to a whole container and that you're never gonna use the whole thing is to give an example and you can cut this out if you want. Maybe I won't. Liquid foundation, you know how most liquid foundations come in these little plastic triangular shaped bottles? Yeah. Okay. So those are about 30 mils. Okay, and this same brand would sell it for $25 in a retail sales in a retail store and with us you can either bring your own packaging or we have some that it could fit in you can fill as much or as little as you want. But if you filled it all the way to 30 milliliters, that would be about 10 to 11. Dollars worth of products whoa obscene savings and I can't to be fair. I can't say the same about all of our products like makeup is certainly a product that we're able to give larger discounts and other things and you know were able to give more of a discount when we get more of a discount for yeah. Yes, you know our products are not not comparable to what you're going to find in Walmart or in Shoppers necessarily. Some of them are going to be cheaper and a lot of them are going to be a little bit more expensive because we have you know, this purchasing policy to get the products that are environmentally socially and economically, you know more sustainable. This is what people should be paying for when they're approaching a store like yours. They're approaching it with the mindset that this is going to or this should be better for the planet if I'm going to pay more than the should be making some kind of Friends, right? Yes or no. I mean, I don't think it's I don't necessarily think people should have to pay more for to be good for the environment or good for their health. That's not what I would say is that all of our products we offer discounts on because we get them in bulk and more able to so we offer between 20 and 45 percent on average on any of our products of the same brand in stores. So our shampoo if you get it pre-packed in a 500 milk container, it's from Monica. It'll be between 12. 52 $16 refilled at a drugstore if you get it from us and you reef and you fill it all the way it's 30% off that price that's crazy. So we're giving the financial incentive. It's just that exact. Brands that were offering aren't necessarily comparable to the cheapest of cheap brands that you'll find in your other traditional stores. Yeah exactly. Where can people find you and bear Market online or when's your next pop-up? Yeah. People can find a bear Market online on our website at www.beertown.org. It dot CA that's berezin naked in not like bears and where are ya? I had so many bear puns like lined up for this and I haven't used a single one. So you're lucky. I would have barely put up with you. Thank you. Thank you so much so we can find you online 20 next pop-up. I would say we're most active on Instagram. Oh great. We I think we but it's really me. I sometimes forget to repost on Facebook. Yeah, but we definitely have a council on both in our handles at Bear Market except Market has no values. So it's VAR e and r KT, okay, and in our Instagram, we're actually really active in our stories which not everyone checks, but with a lot of stories and we don't post to too much we can see the behind-the-scenes. Scenes of you loading a vehicle full of make very grateful very heavy bottles. You get to see me embarrassing myself a lot embarrassing yourself. Sorry go on. I should see the ones from today and our next pop-up. So we are at Patagonia the last Sunday of every month up until the end of October of August. I believe awesome in May. We're at the park Tails your waist Fair on May 11th, and then we're going to be adding a few far. Markets into the mix throughout the summer in both the Withrow farmers market and the Leslie Bill Farmers Market once a month great and we'll be able to find all that information on your website to write and its fans always posted and also in our Instagram profile we WE Post like the next upcoming pop-up or to awesome. That's great. Thank you so much for making yourself available, even though your computer died and all this craziness. And yeah, I'm really sorry about that. But absolutely my pleasure. I love Chatting with them other people who are doing cool things and you know pushing the needle forward. Thanks again for listening everyone take a look at the show notes for links from today's conversation. Particularly the link to Bear markets next pop-up shops around the city. You can find Dana and bear Market on their website. They are Market dot C A and on Instagram add to bear and rkt, remember you can find me on Instagram at Ellsworth Callahan and at practically zero waste pod and the podcast team is growing people's so if you're contacting the show you might receive a response from our excellent social. Dia director and Collins welcome to the team Emma. Have a great week everyone to talk to you soon.
In need of DIY materials for all your package free endeavours? Trying to make the leap to low waste living? Ready to get sustainable but you're on a budget? Toronto's own one-stop shop for package free body and home care products, bare market, is going from pop-up shop to brick and mortar store and it is wonderful! Today's episode with bare market's founder Dayna Stein was so much fun, covering everything from making environmentalism accessible and affordable, to the practicalness of buying bulk, to the pleasures of a good shave with a reusable stainless steel razor. Find bare market at https://baremarket.ca/ Learn more about environmental activism with Patagonia here https://www.patagonia.com/actionworks/#!/choose-location/ New episodes every Sunday, at some point. 