State’s First Zero-Waste Grocery Store Opens

Various products available at Live Free Refillery. (Courtesy of Live free refillery.)

After years of working in the agricultural industry with organic vegetables and as an adviser for farmers seeking help with their businesses, Juliette Buell opened Live Free Refillery, NH’s first Zero Waste grocery store, in July in Bedford.

The seeds for Buell’s latest venture were planted in college studying horticulture at New Mexico State University and then undertaking agricultural extension work for Penn State University where she learned about the challenges local farms are facing in the United States. “When I got married and moved to New England, I wanted to find a way to try to address the issue of diminishing farms,” she says. “I wanted to fight back against this and support local farms; I’m here for the long haul.”

According to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, the total number of U.S. farms have been decreasing since the mid-1930s when there were 6.8 million farms. There were 2 million U.S. farms in 2022, down from 2.2 million in 2007. Small farms—those with $350,000 or less in gross cash farm income (GCFI)—made up 89% of all farms in the U.S. in 2021 but only 17.8% in the share of production. Large scale farms with GCFI of over $1 million made up only 3.2% of all farms but accounted for 46.5% of production. 

Live Free Refillery’s way of fighting back against the loss of local farms is built into its mission, which seeks to reduce impacts to the environment, create agricultural jobs and healthier communities. Doing this, Buell says, involves a focus on reducing waste, and promoting and supporting local farms as much as possible by selling their products and helping them tell their stories. “I wanted to make sure people understand how important it is that we have food grown near where we live,” Buell says. “Farming is something that can be very detrimental to the environment or very beneficial depending on the farmer and their practices.”

To promote its mission, Live Free Refillery is a zero-waste company. The zero-waste movement seeks to maximize recycling, minimize waste, reduce consumption and ensure products are made to be reused, repaired or recycled back into nature or the marketplace.

“Plastic is a cheap material to use to package things but there’s no way to really recycle it,” Buell says, explaining that only 9% of plastic is recycled with the remainder ending up in landfills, burned or littered across the landscape and in the ocean. “What we’re doing here is a way to rethink how we buy our food and to look at it in a more ethical way.”

Live Free Refillery offers a range of dry goods, dairy and produce sourced from local farms. Customers, who pay by weight, are encouraged to bring their own bags and containers, which must be sanitized according to health codes. After placing a container on a scale customers receive a tag that subtracts the weight of the container. 

Buell says the store’s prices are comparable to any grocery store offering organic foods, and Live Free Refillery also offers a range of body care products, such as shampoos and conditioners, as well as biodegradable cleaning supplies that can be bought in bulk. “I would say with the locally produced food items, some of it is actually cheaper than what you’d find in another grocery store,” Buell says, explaining that this is because of the store’s proximity to the farms they work with and because she buys products wholesale. 

Buell says people have been coming into the store to shop and learning about its mission of sustainability in the process. “It can be intimidating to shop for food in a whole different way,” she says. “You’re not always sure what to bring or if you’re bringing the wrong thing. But a lot of people come in, they look around and then they say, ‘ok, I’ll be back with my jars, or I’ll be back with my bags,’ and we’ve got staff here who help them with the whole weighing process. It’s taking some time just for people to understand what we’re trying to do but we’re attracting people.” 

For more information visit livefreerefillery.com.