Meet the founders of Unboxed Market, Little Portugal’s local hot spot for refilling containers, buying unbagged produce, and stocking up on essentials.
“It’s designed to be a full-featured grocery store,” says Michelle Genttner of the store she co-founded, Unboxed Market. “A lot of refilleries are focused on home care or body care, and if you’re trying to create an eco-aware shopping experience, this can mean having to go to six or seven stores to get everything,” she says. At her 1,500-square-foot, Dundas St. W. store, they’ve included many traditional grocery store features, but package-free whenever possible.
Launched in February 2019, Unboxed Market is the brainchild of Genttner and her husband, Luis Martins. Here’s how it works: shoppers bring in clean, reusable containers, which are weighed empty in the store. You fill your containers with the goods you want to buy, they’re re-weighed and you pay just for what you’ve filled them with. As for what’s available to purchase in bulk in the store? Nuts, pasta, beans, soap, produce, milk (it was one of the most popular items when Unboxed opened five years ago), syrup and more. And don’t worry If you forget to bring containers; they have glass jars available for a $2 deposit along with reusable cotton bags for purchase.
You’ll find meats, perogies, samosas, and Jamaican patties (with some frozen goods vacuum-sealed in food-safe, ocean-friendly, compostable and biodegradable eco pouches) at the back of the store. A butcher sels fresh cuts along the east wall, where there’s also a cheese counter with everything from burrata to a Spanish cabrales. And for the days you don’t feel like being in the kitchen or didn’t pack a lunch, stop by the cafe near the store entrance, where you can order a coffee and choose from prepared foods, such as salads or some roasted chicken.
To stock the store’s fruits and veggies, Martins goes to the food terminal several mornings a week. He focuses first on local produce, and then considers whether items are organic, the price point, and packaging. The couple keep prices at Unboxed comparable to grocery store chains — milk, for example, is $2.59 per litre.
Their focused buying method doesn’t appear to limit what fresh fruit and veggies are in store. During our visit, we spy popular fruit and veggies including apples, oranges, broccoli, and carrots but also less common items, such as fresh turmeric, figs, chestnuts, quince, and horned melon. All of it is unpackaged — customers select what they want and put it into their own reusable produce bags or directly into their shopping basket.
We grew up working on farms and surrounded by agriculture, and by people who can, and cook, and preserve. So I don’t think either of us really know how to not be conscious when it comes to sustainability and needing to pay attention to the world.
—Unboxed Market co-founder Michelle Genttner
After nearly five years in business, Unboxed has shifted to meet the needs of its Little Portugal neighbourhood. While the couple initially maintained more Portuguese products, the area’s demographics have shifted and so Unboxed’s offerings have been edited accordingly. Options have expanded, too. “When we opened, we had about 400 SKUs. Now, we have almost 5,000,” says Genttner. Where there was one type of floss before, for example, now they offer six.
What hasn’t changed, however, is Genttner and Martins’s focus on community. They greet most customers by name, know the regulars’ kids, and remember what type of bottle you use all the time for your detergent. “We very much have always believed that our community makes everything what it is,” Genttner says. “They’re incredibly important — to keep us going and keep us open.”
Genttner and Martins are longtime residents of the neighbourhood themselves as well — they’ve lived in the area for more than twenty years — and they practice what they preach when it comes to having an awareness of their impact on the planet. They buy all of their produce from the store, are generally not big consumers of things (“We just pay attention to where we are spending our money, not to say that there aren’t treats — there should be joy in your life!” says Genttner), and walk or bike most places. In fact, although Martins drives a van to the food terminal to buy produce, their personal vehicle is often parked at home, with the two opting for public transit instead.
Genttner credits that fact that she and Martins were each raised in the country for their eco-minded thinking. “We grew up working on farms and surrounded by agriculture, and by people who can, and cook, and preserve,” she says. “So I don’t think either of us really know how to not be conscious when it comes to sustainability and needing to pay attention to the world. It’s been our lives since we were kids.”
