Our Story…
Hi, welcome to ‘the ethicurean’ online store.
The ethicurean was founded in 2009 by me, Kelly, a public health academic, mum of two teenage girls and a boy bean toddler. I’m a keen foodie and blogger with a passion for fresh produce and respectful, ethical and mindful living.
The momentum for ‘the ethicurean’ was born in 2008 in the beautiful eco-town of Fairfax just outside of San Francisco. I experienced a pretty basic, yet amazingly revolutionary idea of seeing fresh, local organic fruit and veg tucked up in soft, ethically produced cloth produce bags. Never having even imagined such a thing existed and not knowing what we were all missing until I saw them, this was my own ‘ lightbulb’ moment. An “Oh Wow! these make so much sense why aren’t we all using them?” epiphany. Reusable cloth produce bags were almost too obvious for words.
Inspired, I returned home to Australia on a mission. To source quality but ethically produced and sustainably made cloth produce bags and make them available to replace the ‘rip and tear’ plastic, single use fruit and veg bags provided in the stores. Along this pathway of discovering the perfect cloth produce bag I came across many uninspiring, bulky, bleached or often made from plastic, produce bags. Frankly, they are yuk. Plastic was the very material I was trying to get away from! I wanted a bag that left a minimal footprint at both ends of its life cycle! Why replace plastic with plastic?
In a community where throwaway plastic shopping bags have been banned, the acceptability of single-use plastic fruit and veg bags just doesn’t make any sense.
Why we do it
*[eth•i•cu•re•an] : noun : also adj . Someone who seeks out tasty things that are also Sustainable, Organic, Local, and/or Ethical — SOLE food.
Inspired by this concept of an ‘ethicurean’, my vision has always been to get these simple bags into peoples’ daily shopping cycle, to become a part of your habit. I’m interested in changing how we perceive behaviours and ‘things’. Something so simple like using a cloth produce bag can be a mechanism for change and subtly alter how other people view ‘normal’. I want to make a difference in changing behaviours and help others make those changes too and strive for a more mindful future. If you’re not interested in peak oil, peak soil or any other ‘peak’ and really just like the idea of a beautifully crafted and very tactile, low impact, ethically made bag for your fruit and veg, that’s fine too.
Bags, in the big picture, really are small potatoes but they form part of the change in redefining what is acceptable and what is experienced as normal. I hope you find what you are looking for.
Updating...
