Grain & Sustain

Our guest speaker was Louise Humpington who is a zero waste shopkeeper and environmental campaigner/writer. She runs Grain and Sustain shops in Burntisland and in Kirkcaldy and opened the Failte Shop in Dunfermline High Street in 2022.  

These are zero waste shop that help consumers make more environmentally friendly purchases and have so far avoided 120,000 pieces of plastic being used.

Louise explained her support for the principle of supporting local independent businesses They use an ethical supply chain and use 60 independent businesses before sourcing further afield.

Although born in Walthamstow Louise was brought up on Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. There she witnessed locals deploy survival techniques using coconut oils etc and she gained knowledge of using natural resources.

Louise returned to Bougainville with Oxfam to progress human rights, resilience and sustainability.  On Bougainville you can see the effects of decisions made by consumers thousands of miles away.  Louise reminded members that we are empowered by the choices that we make. 

We all have buying power and Louise implored members to ask questions about their own ethical investments clammy collectively an impact can be made by choices at micro level. We should be really conscious of the decisions that we are making.  She added:- “We are all in the same storm we are not all in the same boat”. That is the ethos behind the Grain and Sustain business. Where items are being sold at a rock bottom cost, someone, somewhere is paying the price through poor working conditions and low wages.

Louise said that we should understand that the cashew nuts she sells are properly prepared in Goa by women who will not be damaged by handling them.   A single nut is borne from a single fruit, which makes it hugely labour intensive to harvest. Cashews also contain cardol and anacardic acid between the two outer layers of shell. Factories that fail to provide gloves expose the many women who work in the industry to permanent damage when the liquid corrodes their hands. 

Grain and Sustain sell 500 products on refill in Burntisland and Kirkcaldy, 350 products in Dunfermline shop and for example stock pulses, artisan cheeses and even 21 different sugars.

On behalf of the club, Mark Todd gave the vote of thanks for an address that he summed up as a “wow”.  Mark praised Louise’s passion enthusiasm and emotion. Mark pledged to try and visit Failte and get involved in local supply chains.