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Sustainability has always been one of the main focuses of Just Us!
Above and beyond our 100% Fair Trade, 100% Organic products
We strive to serve local/organic whenever possible in all of our baked goods and lunch items. Our flour is Speerville organic flour from New Brunswick; we have local, organic apples from the valley for our organic apple pie. We also offer a selection of vegan goods, such as muffins, soups, samosas etc. Approximately 90% of our fresh produce is sourced locally.
When it comes to meat and fish, we have a beef chili which is made from local, organic beef as well as a fish chowder which contains haddock (fished in Yarmouth), Salmon (farmed in PEI and Digby) as well as Cod, which is fished locally.
In terms of our practices here at Just Us! we always make a thorough effort to ensure that our waste is properly sorted, i.e. trash, compost, recyclable, etc. We have explored alternative energy supplies at our cafe in Grand Pre which uses solar panels to power a small section of the building.
We have also re-introduced native plant species back onto the property surrounding our Grand pre location. We have also switched to a bulk milk system which has eliminated a large percentage of the waste from empty milk containers.
Two of our company vehicles have also been modified to run on vegetable oil. We have a small company car which has been converted, as well as our huge shipping truck (the ol' grinder, as it's called) which also runs on vegetable fuel. These vehicles are used to transport our coffee and other goods from our roastery in the valley to our cafes, including the 2 here in Halifax, as well as other deliveries within the areas.
We are also adamant about using green cleaning supplies in all of our cafes. These include cold water floor cleaner, citrus-based coffee canister cleaner, biodegradable cleaners, etc.
In the new year we will (finally) be switching to compostable cups! The cups are 100% compostable which will make a substantial decrease in our waste. Also, not only being compostable, these cups are sourced from certified sustainable forests! This is also a good spot to mention that we give a really great deal if you BYOM (bring your own mug) in efforts to promote the use of reusable mugs.
We are early adoptors of Natural Step Atlantic Initiave The Just Us! committee members have been attending workshops and conferences about The Natural Step (a popular sustainability framework) which is all part of the Atlantic Canadian Sustainability Initiative ( http://www.atlanticsustainability.ca/ ). This is a group of businesses, municipalities and organizations who have made a commitment to bringing sustainability into the core of our region. Just Us! is an active partner within this network.
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