ENCINITAS — One of North County’s few sustainable living, package-free, zero-waste grocery stores is letting people know they’re still in business and offering even more refillable organic products.
Solana Beach native Katie Fletcher first opened Local Scoop as a zero-waste grocery store providing locally sourced organic cereals, grains, nuts, produce, spices, oils, honey, pasta, superfoods and snacks. The store also recently started offering refillable organic home and body products, such as soaps and dish soap.
Instead of relying on plastic packaging, the store encourages customers to bring their reusable containers to refill supplies. Also, Local Scoop provides donated containers and compostable paper bags for those who wander in unprepared or are looking for a healthy to-go snack.
The store opened in January 2023, splitting its space at 937 S. Coast Highway 101 with The Nada Shop, a zero-waste home and body store that allowed customers to refill their empty bottles with organic soaps for their hair, body and dishes.
In January of this year, the previous owner of the Nada Shop decided to close her side of the store. Local Scoop remained, completely taking over the space, incorporating home and body products into the grocery store’s inventory.
“We’re the one-stop, low-waste living shop where you don’t have to go out of your way to get your cleaners and food,” Fletcher said.
Unfortunately, since The Nada Shop closed and winter rainstorms have driven away foot traffic, the business at Local Scoop has been slow. According to Fletcher, due to some miscommunication, many customers mistakenly believe that Local Scoop is closed.
“So many of our customers don’t think we’re here anymore,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher wants to spread the word that Local Scoop is still in business and hopes to remain part of the Encinitas downtown community.
“It’s a progressive-thinking city where so many people are deeply connected to the ocean, the environment and their health,” she said. “There’s nowhere else I could imagine being.”
Studying abroad in Spain, London and Sydney, zero-waste healthy stores were a regular thing. After searching for a nearby sustainable grocery store to no avail, Fletcher opened Local Scoop.
“I genuinely wanted to shop and live that way, so after five years of searching, I just created the store,” Fletcher said.
Local Scoop now offers hundreds of organic goods, from flours to nuts, seeds, trail mixes, a superfood powder bar, spices, pasta and more, plus cleaning products, shower steamers, bath bombs, massage and hair oils, shampoos and conditioners, and other home and body refills.
Beyond providing a sustainable service for the community, Fletcher also uses Local Scoop to spread awareness about the global plastic pollution problem and to show people that a zero-waste lifestyle doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive, noting that she saves her customers from paying for packaging markups.
“It doesn’t have to be a fancy container; just bring what you already have,” she said. “You also don’t have to overhaul your house and change everything at once; just wait until you run out of something and bring in that same container to be refilled.”
