Hello!Bulk Markets started as a “seed” in the mind of founder, Jamaica Trinnaman, as she worked quiet (ridiculously early) mornings as a bakery manager for Wild Oats Markets. At the time the store carried some, limited, bulk body care items. Customers would bring in their own containers and refill them with shampoo, conditioner or lotion... allowing them to pay for the contents, not the package. Although it was never the tidiest corner of the store, die-hard “anti-packaging” customers shopped it. Jamaica shopped it. When management did away with the little corner people complained, but nothing like it returned and every time Jamaica bought a new container of shampoo it stung. “Why?” She would ask, and continued to ask as she raised her three boys and worked in the grocery industry for the next decade.

 

Year by year changes rolled out that seemed contrary to the mission of the natural grocery world. She watched as bulk departments cut the amount of organics they offered, even as the research piled up around the benefit of organic. She watched as one grocery chain removed nearly every organic offering from the bulk bins and began carrying them only in plastic pre-packaged containers. This seriously limited the customers’ ability to control how much they purchased (not to mention placing the beautiful organic food in toxic single-use containers). Customers were furious, as was she, but nothing changed. She watched as more and more packaging entered the market, thoughtless, often unnecessary packaging and it became her pet peeve. Jamaica found herself complaining, like a bitter old woman at the age of 42, every time she opened a container that only used a fraction of its volume for the contents.

 

As the pet peeve grew, so did the “seed”, and for years the idea of a bulk goods store rumbled around in her head...one that offered body care and household cleaners in addition to the usual bulk department items...one that offered the community a varied selection of organics at reasonable prices. Today the seed has become a seedling and Hello!Bulk Markets has opened in a small, starter model on the west side of Salt Lake City (in what locals call the Granary District). Within the year Jamaica intends to grow this business into its first full-fledged retail location, one that offers bulk like you have never seen it...local goods, organic produce, Kombucha on tap, and classes that help our community learn and grow too. At Hello!Bulk Markets we believe there is a better way to shop and we invite you to join us.

 

…..even little changes can make a BIG difference.