Just off South Coast Highway, and in the same space as fellow sustainable brand The Nada Shop, Katie Fletcher is running Local Scoop, a zero-waste grocery store –which basically means you won’t find any packaged items inside.
“It allows customers to bring their containers from home whether it’s a plastic bag, jar or zip lock –it doesn’t have to be fancy, that’s something I always tell people. It could be an old pasta box or a bread bag and you can come in, refill, with as much or as little as you need,” said Katie Fletcher, owner of Local Scoop.
The dream started when Katie was studying abroad in Australia, She found a bunch of zero-waste grocery stores to shop at but was surprised to find that her coastal, seemingly sustainable hometown of San Diego had nothing remotely similar.
“I live by the coast, I enjoy the ocean, I surf, I want to take care of this place we call home and when there was nothing like it for years, I’m like, I’m just going to bring that shop here because I genuinely want to shop that way,” said Fletcher.
With a public health nutrition background, and no business experience, she launched Local Scoop in 2022, figuring it out along the way – like most entrepreneurs.
Inside the store, you’ll find items like nuts, dates. and granolas, along with just about every ingredient for baking from baking soda to flour.
“‘Nothing has artificial colors, flavors or sweeteners — even the kids treats like vegan jelly beans or M& M’s – are all colored with superfoods and clean ingredients. Most things are organic, almost everything from the spices and the granolas and superfoods are all organic, there are a few things here and there that aren’t just cost effective wise and if we can get it close to San Diego as possible but for the most part, everything’s organic —– we work with small vendors, a couple family farms and people in Oregon,” said Fletcher.
Since launching her business, Katie has diverted plastic waste from going into landfills. And, she hopes that her business can be a space that educates more and more people about a more sustainable way to shop.
“My mission is this mentality that I have personally toward plastic that it has to stop, we have to stop producing it. It’s not how do we properly recycle it, repurpose it – those things are important but I think there’s a certain point where we have to disrupt the industry and say we are gonna package foods in different ways because production of plastic just has to stop, the landfills are so overfilled, the plastics take so long to break down and I think as people are becoming more aware of what micro-plastics are doing to our health, our bodies and the ocean – it’s so scary,” said Fletcher.
Katie’s tips to live more sustainably: start with one item and switch it to a more eco-friendly option that doesn’t use plastic like a bamboo toothbrush or fruit that isn’t wrapped in plastic.
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