Save money by bringing your own container to fill
Save money by bringing your own container to fill
We are pleased to be open and continuing to offer low waste options to nourish our community during these extraordinary times. Our operations have changed slightly due to the COVID-19 situation, but you still get quality products in no waste packaging. Instead of refilling your jars, we use sanitized free jars, sanitized deposit jars, or compostable paper bags. We are open and you are free to roam around and shop
(after sanitizing and maintaining social distancing - of course).
We have 2 service models - online and in store.
ONLINE: We offer a full-service ONLINE model. Meaning, you order ONLINE and we do all the shopping for you. When your order is ready just come collect it either in store or select curbside pickup and we will bring your order to your car. The store is set up so that social distancing is easily managed during in store pick up.
IN STORE SHOPPING: Come on in and shop in store! We would love to see you. We are taking lots of precautions to keep everyone safe. For example…we diligently sanitize all touch points throughout the day. We limit the number of customers in store. We have enough space to maintain social distancing.
We require hand sanitizing when entering the store.
We now need to add a step to the process. Instead of directly refilling your jars we put your products in either a free jar, deposit jar or paper bag. You can then return the free or deposit jar. Reusing at its best!
We will put your food or cleaning products in either a:
We do our best to give as many free jars as possible; however, there are a lot of factors that
determine what vessel to use (size of jars available, how many we have, liquid vs dry etc).
Take a jar, leave a jar. This is a full exchange program.
We rely on donations of clean, label free, wide mouth jars with lids.
There are totes outside our front door for drop-off donations.
We then do the work to sanitize them!
We use these jars to pack orders and wait for them to come back, so that we can use them again.
Criteria for donation jars are:
Our deposit jars are $1.00-$3.00 each. The deposit will be given back when you return the jar - lids too please. New jars will have a deposit applied when you pick up your order.
As a side note: the jars are meant to be brought back so we can reuse them; however, we have noticed that most people are keeping them. :) They are nice jars, but please bring them back, so we have enough jars to fill future orders. If you would like to purchase the jars, just let us know and we can make that happen!
We sell bulk dry food in units of 100 grams. You will see the price on the right hand
side stated in $ per 100 grams. So if you order 3 units of nutritional yeast, you are purchasing 300 grams.
The price and quantity will calculate when you go to check out.
We are working on providing more information on the ‘standard’ size of each item sold; however,
we have a lot of items to get through, so please be patient with us.
In the meantime feel free to call us and we will help you gauge how many grams you want of a certain item.
We know this isn’t an ideal zero waste option, but given the circumstances we feel this is the best choice.
We have chosen a standard brown paper bag and your compost will love the paper additive.
We can’t wait to start refilling your containers again.
Right now, we are able to fill order within 3-hours, during business hours. We will email or call you when your order is ready. Thank-you for your understanding, as things shift daily for based on staffing and order levels.
Yes, we have one till that is able to accept cash.
Well….we have the same question for Weebly who hosts our online store. The good news is, all you have to do is put in your postal code where it says Zip Code and it works!
Make sure that you are providing the postal code that matches your banking information.
We are offering local delivery upon request for a small fee. Please contact us via email info@gemstoneessence.ca or phone 519-441-7640 and we will be able to assist you.
Yes, we do! You can purchase gift cards instore and online! e really appreciate the support!
Please feel free to reach out to our team with any questions you have.
Phone us 519-441-7640 during business hours or email us info@gemstoneessence.ca