CINCINNATI — Bryan Lierer grabs a glass jar and smiles.
“This is the best part,” he said.
Soon, a 70-pound machine stuffed with 20 pounds of peanuts roars to life. Out comes something that doesn't look too appetizing. Alex Heppner laughs because it’s one of their most popular items, peanut butter, made from nothing more than smashed peanuts.
“I tell everyone that if we fail, at least we have nut butter machines,” Lierer said. “We’re taking that with us.”
WATCH: We take you inside an alternative grocery store in Northside
Lierer and Heppner are standing in Lierer’s Market in Northside. It’s a low-waste grocery store they opened last year. You could call it a refillery, where customers bring their own containers to buy bulk items like rice, beans and pasta. They also sell soap and deodorant.
And peanut butter.
“They’ll have a small jar to start,” Heppner said. “And the next time their jar gets bigger — and then it’s bigger, because it’s just so good.”
Neither Heppner nor Lierer has a background in business — or grocery stores. For them, it all started with tissues.
Well, getting rid of tissues.
“Bryan likes to say we just kept going further and further and got in too deep to go back,” Heppner said. “So now we have this business where we help people reduce their waste.”
A few years ago, the couple started cutting up old T-shirts and using them for tissues. That way, they could wash and reuse them, instead of throwing box after box into the trash.
“But we realized that our waste reduction could really only go as far as the conventional grocery store,” Heppner said.
And when they moved to Northside, they couldn’t find anywhere they wanted to shop. The neighborhood didn’t have a grocery store. And in the ones they found nearby, they couldn't help but notice the amount of plastic packaging and containers.
In America, more than 26 million tons of plastic end up in the landfill each year, according to the EPA.
So Lierer and Heppner opened their own store. The idea is to eliminate most of the plastic you would normally see. They now sell 175 items that you can buy without any packaging.
“It’s really exciting for us when people come in and we see a light bulb go off,” Heppner said. “It’s a little bit different, but people get excited when they come in and they see there is an alternative.”
In addition to refills, the couple collects items you can’t easily recycle and composts almost everything else — including fruit and vegetables they buy from the farmer's market down the street.
“Before things even get to the store, we’re already thinking about its life cycle and what’s going to happen to it,” she said. “We almost exclusively eat food that is about to expire."
That’s why Julia Marchese is here. Marchese co-founded Queen City Commons several years ago, an organization that collects food scraps from restaurants and homeowners to help farmers compost more.
“I just kind of fell into it, and then I fell in love with it,” Marchese said. “This has been a dream-come-true to have this in the neighborhood.”
Inside Lierer's Market, she turns to Heppner and Lierer.
“I can’t believe you guys are here,” Marchese said.
“I can’t believe it, either,” Lierer said.
