SP0209: Buy Your Own Bulk

The Buy Your Own Bulk project, also known as BYOB, aims to create a non-profit student-run retail service, with the goal of enabling the Macdonald campus community to purchase dry food items at a lower cost than in grocery stores, while maintaining a zero-waste policy.

The SPF funding was used to purchase materials for operations (e.g. cupboards, scoops, containers, etc). Most of the food offered is organic or fair trade certified, and is as local as possible.

People living in the vicinity of Macdonald campus have limited access to affordable grocery stores. In Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, there is only one small supermarket, Marché Richelieu, located in the heart of the town. To be able to find a more diversified choice of food products, students need to have access to a car. Additionally, food products found in traditional grocery stores are often wrapped with lots of packaging, all of which end up in landfills. Students also don’t always have the monetary resources to eat healthy food or may lack cooking knowledge.

BYOB is a solution to all of those problems. The project involves the sale of dry food items (grains, nuts, seeds, flour, dry fruits, etc.) at a lower price than in grocery stores, directly on campus through weekly sales. The food items sold are cheaper since they are bought in bulk from a supplier and there are no added fees (no profit, no employee salary, no rent, no electricity bill, no packaging, etc.). With BYOB, not only do customers reduce their waste production by bringing their own containers, they also limit their transportation. Various recipes are proposed in BYOB’s monthly newsletter to help students improve their cooking skills.