The Oé team is on the front lines at the moment. We travel from city to city, and from phone call to email to find grocery stores, wine shops and restaurants near you in search of good and committed wines. On the way to Bordeaux , Damien and Romain, our two sales managers crossed paths with Anaïs and Héloïse , two natives of Béarnaise, in their brand new Tista grocery store . We present them to you?
Can you tell us about your grocery store in a few words?
“The Tista grocery store is two Béarnaises transformed into city dwellers, who wanted to introduce Bordeaux residents to Béarn products and many other products from small local producers with , of course, the desire to promote the zero waste approach . .”
How did the adventure start?
“We are two friends from middle school / high school who created Tista, which means "the basket" in Bearn. By chance, we found ourselves in the same city, at the right time, with the desire to create a store that resembles us and shares our values and our tastes!
How did you come to offer committed products?
“We not only favored organic, for us it was also important to highlight the local with our small producers who do not always have the means to pay for the label and who are very respectful of the environment in their approach . .
We make sure to always choose natural products , from small local productions and ideally which offer the deposit of their containers. The idea is that the producer is encouraged in his approach, that he is remunerated correctly, that short circuits are increasingly valued and that consumption in general takes on a human dimension. The customer must be able to shop with us with confidence. We try to communicate about zero waste without putting too much pressure on our customers, by sowing seeds here and there. ”
Why did you choose Oé wines?
“We offer all of our dry goods in bulk, and many of our jars and bottles are returnable. For us, it was obvious to offer a consigned wine, we wanted a coherent approach from A to Z ! We encourage customers to come with their boxes, jars and tissue bags. We work with Box-eaty which offers returnable containers in several restaurants and stores in Bordeaux, with the workshop Remuménage which is a Bordeaux association which offers employment in integration and deliveries/moving by bicycle, and which takes care of our deliveries of certain products and for certain customers. We also work with Recup Bokashi (an association that collects bio-waste) to recycle our organic waste. And of course, and recently, we have been working with the Consigne Bordelaise and Oé ! We had a real crush on the Bordeaux Oé wines because it seems logical to us in the process of choosing local products, and especially because it is our first wine with a bottle on deposit !”
Héloïse: “In general, I really like the wines of Touraine and Alsace for my part, Anaïs would rather be Chardonnay and the reds of Burgundy.”
Editor's note: Discover the wines of Bordeaux Oé: Bordeaux red and Bordeaux white !
To learn more about this trip to Bordeaux and meet the other grocery stores we visited, it's here 👇🏼
What is your long-term vision?
“For the future, we would like to harmonize the deposit system , and offer everything in bulk and/or in returnable containers . That the public is also more aware of the problems of waste in the world, and more locally in France. That organic waste is collected from individuals and recycled into compost, that small stores are multiplying and that consumption patterns change (easy to say, isn't it?)”
What is the thing you are most proud of?
“We are very proud of our shop in general, and of having done all the work ourselves! It was crazy to start from nothing and create everything, having never done that before.”
How do you help your customers to engage even more?
“What works well with our customers to raise their awareness of zero waste it is to have a very good product, which they often come for. And then after a while to offer them to do the same, but without the packaging (for the cheese for example). We offer a loyalty card that encourages zero waste, and we offer baskets and small gifts to customers who manage to do 100% zero waste shopping .”
