All we have is right now, so lets make it the best it can be.

Our Environment is for us, for our kids, their kids and for all the generations to come.

From 2008 we have started some big changes to our store with having solar panels installed to run our electricity supply, since then we have not looked back.

Here at The Cook Grocer we are committed to contributing to a sustainable and clean environment for the future. We are constantly looking at the ways we can improve our local grocery store to reduce our footprint on our environment.

We also want to educate our community why we are doing this and whilst encouraging our customer to do the same. As apart of Our Sustainable Future we have put together an overview of what our journey has looked like so far and what our short term goals are and what the future looks like.

• Revamped our Fruit & Vegetable Section in January 2020 to now include more locally sourced & organic products including a larger range of organic products and eliminate all single use plastic use item
• Introduced our Bag Swap Station where customers can leave reusuable bags for their community to use. This was to assist the community in reducing plastic and paper single use bags
• Completely Plastic free from January 1 2020 –- this means no more plastic bags at point of sale, no more plastic bags for the fruit & vegetable section and no single use items such as straws.
• 14 Solar panels were installed in 2008
• 134 Solar Panels were installed in 2021 – we filled our whole roof!!
• Swapped all overhead fluro lighting for LED in 2011
• Our store recycles all cardboard
• Roller shutters are used at night for our dairy cabinet to keep the cool in
• Introduced and continue to source Locally made products throughout our store
• Introduced paper bags at the registers along with canvas bags options
• We have been encouraging customers to bring their own shopping bags in 2011
• Transitioning from single use plastic trays to home compostable trays made from sugar & bamboo tray for our prepacked vegetables
• Paper bags are now provided in our Fruit and Vegetable section to replace single-use plastic bags
• We have removed plastic courtesy straws from our store and replaced them with paper straws
• We have increased and will continually increase our stock for eco-friendly products to empower our customers to make sustainable choices including wax wrappers, eco friendly cleaning products, plastic free brushware & sponges, reusable containers

“All we have is right now, so lets make it the best it can be”.

GO GREEN!
There is no plan B!

• Continuously improving to minimise our electricity consumption
• A new dairy cabinet to replace what is currently in store
• Doors on all our fridges in store to reduce heat consumption and power outages
• We will introduce a food waste donation system by donating excess product to the ACT Wildlife for the rehabilitation of sick and injured wildlife in the Canberra Region
• Increase consumer awareness through in store signage on how YOU can shop with the environment in mind – be on the look out for Our Sustainable Future Campaign
• Campaign for a local Container Deposit Scheme in Cook for recycling plastic, aluminium, steel, liquid cartons and glass containers.
• Campaign for a local Berry & Tomatoe Farmer to supply us with fruit & vegetables that are packaged in a cardboard recyclable containers or compostable packaging . This will be to remove need for single plastic use items.