Canadians who know about Camino know the iconic hot chocolate tins and rainbow-coloured chocolate bar wrappers. Those individually packaged products have been key to increase the awareness about the importance of supporting co-operatives to change a food system dominated by corporations. However, did you know that most of the fair trade organic cocoa and sugar sold by our co-op comes in bulk and is shipped as such? We are quite thrilled when we can move cocoa and sugar directly from the farm or factory without extra packaging to minimize the environmental impact of fair trade ingredients.
One of our best partners in this effort is NousRire, an ecological and organic buying club active throughout Quebec. This impressive group buys organic foods in bulk and then co-operates on distribution and ride-sharing to accomplish a simple goal: increase access to high quality organic bulk foods with a positive impact on communities and the planet.
Since the launch of their project in spring 2015 they have:
- created several picking locations in 17 towns in Quebec;
- distributed over 460,000 kg of food;
- saved from the Earth 1 million pieces of packaging.
Lately, our co-op has been able to integrate to our bulk offering additional ingredients from Equal Exchange like their cashews (natural and roasted with salt), their almonds (natural and tamarin) and their mango strips.
We are proud to be able to support the Zero Waste movement with a full line of fair trade and organic bulk foods: cocoa powder, couverture, chocolate chips, sugars, coconut and now with some highly nutritious dried fruits and nuts. And all of these foods are traceable back to the farm!
If you’d like to know more about the Zero Waste movement and find places to shop while reducing your packaging waste, we have compiled a few useful resources for you:
About the Zero Waste movement:
Easy and quick ways to start reducing and stop generating waste:
Where to shop Zero Waste in Canada:
- https://zerowastecanada.ca/tag/zero-waste-stores/
- https://circuit0dechet.com/circuit-members/ (in Quebec)
Most of Camino’s baking ingredients, and now Equal Exchange’s dried fruits and nuts, are available in the bulk section of your natural health food stores or at Zero Waste stores.
If you can’t find them at your favorite store, please let us know at shannon@camino.ca and we will contact them for you.
Finally, we are also considering adding to our bulk list an unwrapped version of our top selling chocolate bars. Doesn’t that sound yummy?! Let us know what you think!
PS: Earth Day is April 22nd
Happy Earth Month!
