I’ve developed a taste for expensive yogurt.
It started as a lark a few days ago, in a natural foods store near my home, when I saw Saint Benoit Yogurt for the first time. This single-serving yogurt comes in a miniaturized stoneware crock, colored and shaped like (what I imagine to be) a traditional European crock.
I figured I’d throw down the $3.99 for a Saint Benoit once—it seemed luxurious, and worth doing for the experience.
But lo, the Palmetto Organic Grocery has just opened directly across the street from our office, and guess what they carry?
As it turns out, Saint Benoit only costs $2.49 if you return one of the used crocks. Compared to the usual $0.99 for many other organic yogurts, this price is still awfully high, but if the reusable crock and local, sustainable production are an ecological improvement over the usual disposable plastic container and cross-country transport, that’s one inducement to pony up.
The bottom line for me is sensory, though. There’s something about the “old world-like experience” of holding that little crock and hearing the spoon clink on its side that is proving to be quite seductive.
It’s a triumph of interface design.
Tags: container, crock, disposable, disposable container, European, experience, interface design, local food, luxury, natural foods, Palmetto Organic Grocery, recycling, Saint Benoit, sustainable, yogurt
Please don’t tell me the Palmetto Organic Grocery takes your crock, ladles some fresh yogurt in, and hands it back over the counter to you?
Seriously, I wonder what the overhead/distribution wrangling/etc. was in order to make that returnable packaging thing happen. Can you imagine returning a jar from peanut butter to Safeway? They just aren’t set up to collect, clean, and store used food containers.
Comment by Steve Portigal 08.15.08 @ 4:15 pmThis system is based on the traditional “milk bottle” system; the store collects a flat of used containers, and then gives them back to Saint Benoit to clean and refill. They did request that I wash the crock before bringing it back, though.
Comment by Dan Soltzberg 08.18.08 @ 12:47 pmWhile the whole milk-bottle model is probably to difficult to compete with price wise, evidenced by $4 yogurt, it would be interesting to see where more take back could help. If there were an efficient system for cleaning/reusing, it might stand to save companies some money or at least give them a little more credibility. It would be interesting to see a take-back model paired with a service like PeaPod, where you could tie orders and returns together and companies might be able to take advantage of creating loyal repeat customers through take-back plans, or something of a food subscription. Maybe if the take back bottles were tagged electronically and connected to your preferred order system (online vs. grocery store) it could build a potential grocery list for you, even make suggestions of meals or foods. This is assuming a lot though, but it would be nice to see food distribution change for the better.
Comment by matt.a 08.19.08 @ 11:24 amMatt, your idea reminds me a bit of a version of take-back that’s built into some merchant-vendor relationships. “Guaranteed sale” vendors such as Odwalla take back their products if they’re still on the store shelf after the sell-by date. So this encourages the vendor not to oversell, which creates a de facto kind of responsible distribution.
Dan
Comment by Dan Soltzberg 08.21.08 @ 12:24 pmSounds like you are all new to the “reuse and reduce waste” idea. In SF St Benoit has been doing this for 6 years and it works very well. I just noticed that this product is available in LA, some Whole Foods stores, some coops like, the ones in Santa Monica and Hollywood, are carying it. I love the corcks, they are so cute, but I also love the idea of no plastic! This is the future people!!! (and a the past as well)
Comment by Sarah 04.08.09 @ 11:58 amI think the “reuse and reduce waste” aspect of products like this is great. I also think that for any kind of larger-scale adoption of new behaviors, a great user experience is likely to gain more converts than the knowledge (on its own) that it’s a socially beneficial thing to do.
Comment by Dan Soltzberg 04.08.09 @ 12:29 pm[...] Crock Addict [...]
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