How hard is it to sell an apple, or a banana in a petrol station when there is an international trend for self care and self optimisation? Probably not very.
This morning I drove two hours back to work, having left the house in a hurry without time to eat. I’m one of those people who has a slight tendency to get ‘hangry’ when I’m low on fuel, I needed food. So I stopped to fill up with petrol and grab a snack. There was a Starbucks coffee machine which made for a good start to my petrol station shopping experience, although this was still a giant downgrade from LA which is littered with drive-through Starbucks’. The ‘goodness’ of the experience ended there. I don’t like eating food where I don’t understand half of the ‘ingredients’ (preservatives etc), that’s not to say sometimes I don’t give in to the odd delicious bar of chocolate or a massive pizza but if I eat less healthy food it’s cuz it’s really, really yummy..and I really want it. Standing in a petrol station, starving, not being able to find a single piece of food I’m comfortable ingesting after having look around 3 times I thought "why should I be forced to eat this by giant companies? And why aren't these giant companies helping small, good brands?!"
So dear Esso, dear Shell, dear BP… this isn’t a hard problem to solve, in fact I’m about to make it a whole lot easier.. please find attached a list of wonderful health food + drink brands. Not only are their foods + drinks not awful for you, they actually allow you to put GOODNESS in to your bodies when snacking. All great for on the go. Stop taking away peoples rights to look after themselves, especially people who's jobs require them to spend a lot of time on the road.
1. Punch Foods, Superseeds; delicious sweet + savoury seed mix’s dressed with superfoods
Image, instagram.com/punchfoods
2. Jax Coco; their new toasted coconut chips are so pure, so delicious and so full of goodness
Image, Araminta Marketing
3. Ohso Probiotic Chocolate; Belgian Chocolate that delivers over a billion live bacteria to your gut, no nuts, no gluten, no rubbish and you should have one a day. The dream.
Image, Araminta Marketing
4. Two Chicks Chirps; high protien, free range egg white chips.
5. Pip Organics; smoothies, iced lollies and cold pressed juices especially great for the kids (think of children!!)
Image, twitter.com/piporganic
6. Tapped Birch Water; Delicious water straight from birch trees
Image, instagram.com/tappedtrees
7. Pip & Nut; lots of different nut-butters with no added nasties. They have handy little 'on the go' sachets.
Image, instagram.com/pipandnut/
8. 100% natural organic raw brownies; with lots of delicious super foods.
9. 9Bars; fighting against refined sugars.
Image, instagram.com/9bar_official/
10. Cru Kafe; good coffee is so inivting. These divine little pods are ethical and fit in a Nespresso machine.
Image, www.instagram.com/CRUkafe/
11. Virtue Ice Tea; low sugar, added vitamins and minerals
Image, instagram.com/virtuedrinks/
How about helping amazing, small brands and start-ups whose sole mission it is to make a difference? These ethical, sustainable, hard working, beautiful, amazing brands. In her recent Sheridan&Co article on the Designing Retail blog Julien Sheridan wrote; “Our wonderful stores have their own big picture to draw, and their margins to meet. Just maybe they could save a few square feet somewhere visible for these smaller brands. To give them what they need before they can survive on their own. Special care.” This doesn't have to stop at department stores. This could be much bigger.
Thank you for reading and if you'd like to do a tasting I'd more than happily organise this!
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