Hayley Blundell just celebrated the one-year anniversary mark Aug. 21 of her grocery store Hayley’s Grains, which she calls an “ethical one-stop shop,” but it has taken a while for her to narrow down what exactly it is.
“That was a really hard thing for me was to decide the direction of the store,” said Blundell, who grew up in Australia but lived in Taylor briefly during her middle school years. “Did I go all local? Did I go all plastic-free? Did I go all organic? Which path did I choose?”
In the end, Blundell chose a little bit of it all for her small store, located at 120 W. Second Street, Suite G.
For customers like Blundell attempting to live a plastic-free or low-plastic lifestyle, they can fill up their own jars to purchase rice, pulses, beans, steel cut oats and other grains. They can stock up on spices, herbs, sea salt and even nutritional yeast. They can access refilling stations for liquid soaps, laundry detergents and all-purpose cleaners. And they can buy plastic-free household items, including bamboo cotton swabs, loofah sponges, and more.
“I opened this store selfishly for me so we could do our plastic-free lifestyle, but also to make it very accessible,” she said.
For example, a customer might not be familiar with how to attempt the new concept of paying for things by weight or even to pronounce “quinoa.” • page 1
“I can say, this is how you cook it, and it gives them the space and time that they need to wrap their head around doing things by weight because it is really intimidating,” she said. Hayley’s Grains also offers locally sourced produce from Olson Family Farm, Coupland Honey and Vermillion Aeroponic Farm as well as meats from Belle Vie Farm, Amber Oaks Ranch and Homestead Texas Farm.
She also offers locally sourced dairy, juice, and fresh-baked goods. “I am a foodie,” she said. “I love cooking.” Blundell said that only about five percent of her client base lives a plasticfree lifestyle.
“The majority of them come here because the quality of food is superior to what else they can get or because they want to get local meat, but they can’t always get to the farmers market on Saturday,” she said. “So it’s just balancing act, but ultimately everything that’s in here has been handpicked, and I have tried to make the more ethical choice about pesticides or something we use for the environment.”
Blundell said she and her husband Matt Holwill, who also works at the store, began reducing their plastic use in 2018 after she read a book entitled “No Impact Man” by Colin Beavan while on holiday.
“I think if you start to realize the amount of plastic that is ending up in our waterways or just in landfills around the area … about 91 percent of what we recycle doesn’t end up being reused or gets downcycled, and you get one more use out of it before it ends up in the landfill anyway,” Blundell said. “So, my whole way of looking at things is to reduce and reuse. Just taking that little bit of plastic out can make a huge difference and a huge impact on our environment and the world.”
