We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jessica Walden. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jessica below.
Hi Jessica, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
My husband, Chris McGuire, and I came up with this idea one morning over coffee – but it really comes from years and years of schooling and environmental activism.
I continued to foster my passion for the ocean through science. I went to USC Wrigley Marine Institute Women in Science program during the summer in high school, I went to UC Santa Cruz to pursue a Marine Biology Bachelor’s degree where I became a NAUI Scientific Diver. I then studied oceanography at the Sorbonne where I got my masters degree, and recently (finally!) got my PhD from UC Irvine’s Earth System Science department.
During the pandemic, we started ordering large bags of staples, like 25lb bags of beans, rice, flour, etc. because the bulk sections at our local grocery stores shut down. I think I said something like, jeez we have so much food we should sell it out of our pantry. And thus, the spark. We were inspired by the plastic-free grocery stores in Europe, where I lived for 2 years in France. Buying food by the kilogram is common practice in Europe, it’s really an old idea, not a new one. We are just trying to go back to a simpler time, a less wasteful time.
Jessica, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I grew up going to Hawaii – I was lucky to have grandparents who lived there. That, and growing up in southern California, combined to give me a deep love for the ocean. I was a junior lifeguard in Newport Beach, and they’d have us pick up trash after our snack and lunch breaks. So, at the age of 9, I was faced with the reality of how much plastic trash there was on the beach.
I continued to foster my passion for the ocean through science. I went to USC Wrigley Marine Institute Women in Science program during the summer in high school, I went to UC Santa Cruz to pursue a Marine Biology Bachelor’s degree where I became a NAUI Scientific Diver. I then studied oceanography at the Sorbonne where I got my masters degree, and recently (finally!) got my PhD from UC Irvine’s Earth System Science department.
So, clearly, the environment is a passion of mine. Chris and I met at UC Irvine, he grew up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, spending summers and winters at Lake Tahoe riding bikes or snowboarding, so the health of the natural environment was always his passion. He’s a service-oriented guy, spending almost 10 years in the Marine Corps and now, after 10 years in school (Irvine Valley College and UC Irvine), has his doctorate in Earth System Science as well. }
Our store is a place where you can come with your containers from home and fill directly from our bins and dispensers. We have hundreds of items, ranging from spices to flours, beans and rice, protein powder, dried fruits, coffee, tea, etc. You pay by the weight of the food, so you can buy as little or as much as you need. If you need 1 cup of flour for a recipe, you can just buy one cup. Just need 1 tsp of a spice that you normally don’t use? Come in and buy a teaspoon. This way it won’t sit in your pantry, unused, for 10 years.
Our goals are to reduce food packaging waste, but also to reduce food waste in general. Our store is designed to be an enjoyable experience as well. We have black and white checkered flooring, provencal curtains (repurposed from our wedding tablecloths), and dried flowers.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
We started a GoFundMe campaign in the hopes of raising $55,000. We were able to raise $10,000 from friends, family, and strangers alike. This was amazing but obviously not enough. We then reached out to some family members and friends to help us with personal loans – we are so lucky to have generous friends and family who helped us. We could not qualify for a “real” loan from a bank, so if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have been able to open our store. We are slowly paying back the loans each month, but it will be awhile before we can pay everyone back. Our goal is to be able to repay everyone after a period of three years.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
We did not realize how important social media was for small businesses before opening our store. We have definitely noticed that when we are lacking on posts, we get fewer customers. We try to stay on top of it with the goal of posting at least three times a week to the grid, and posting stories almost every day. We try to interact with other small business – we share other businesses and they share us. It really is a very cool network of refill shops that follow each other on instagram – liking posts and writing comments. Our neighbor refill shop, Fill Up Buttercup, opened two years before us and has done such an amazing job with their social media and they have a large following. They have been instrumental in raising awareness of our store, sharing our posts and shopping with us, tagging our products, etc. It really is a community that supports each other, which is cool to see these days. I’d say, definitely interact as much as you can with local businesses and brands and it never hurts when a local influencer posts your store!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.amisdelaterremarket.com
- Instagram: amisdelaterremarket
- Facebook: amisdelaterremarket
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/amis-de-la-terre-zero-waste-market-costa-mesa
Image Credits
Mia Gautreau