Simple Bare Necessities

A community store offering package-free, sustainable, earth conscious food, personal care and home essentials while creating a neighborhood space to come together and take steps towards protecting our environment. We are here to promote a circular system and help our community achieve individual action in reducing their environmental footprint.

What is Simple Bare Necessities?

Simple Bare Necessities is a zero-waste store aimed to directly influence positivity in the way we consume. A twist on the way shopping used to look like dating back to the 1950’s, we are saying no to single-use plastic and offering package free, refillable products that are all-around better for the earth.

Our mission is to preserve our natural, wondrous world by eliminating single-use plastics, educating others about sustainable living practices, and cultivating individual action to make positive impacts on our planet. We are building a sustainable community space with all efforts towards preserving our planet.

How do we plan to do that?

Our Goals

• To stand as a community hub, raising awareness on the plastic crisis and educating about sustainable practices.
• We are here to make low waste living accessible and affordable.
• Simple Bare Necessities supports businesses with values alike, companies making every and all efforts towards a sustainable future so we can stand together and create a positive impact.
• As a community hub, we will offer community resources, such as recycling programs, composting services, and educational workshops.
• By not producing superfluous waste and encouraging refills, we will be enabling a circular economy.
• The only way can and will operate is with full transparency.

But, what’s the problem- why plastic free?

The average American creates about 4.4lbs of trash a day.  The EPA estimates that 30% of municipal waste is single-use plastics! On top of what is sent to the landfill, about 18 billion pounds of plastic end up in our oceans each year. And it takes over 500 years for these plastics to decompose, and before they do, they break into microplastics that are killing the wildlife and polluting the seas. Unfortunately, recycling just is not the answer. Only 9% of plastic is recycled, we need a better solution.

Simple Bare Necessities is here to be part of that solution.

Since the 1950’s humans have produced 18 trillion pounds of plastic. If we put a modern twist on how shopping used to be, prior to the 50’s, we can save literal tons of plastic from polluting our planet. Simply by reshaping our consumption habits and eliminating single-use plastic, we can be the change.

According to a new Futerra survey, 96% of consumers feel their own actions, such as donating, recycling or buying ethically, can make a difference. And over half believe that they personally can make a big difference. Consumers are aware of the impact and importance of individual action. 88% of consumers want brands to help them live sustainably, and we want to be the help. We are here to do the research to provide the most environmentally responsible products to make individual actions just that easy.

Where will your funds go?

We need to raise 20K to solidify our location. Once the brick-and-mortar store has been secured, we will begin build and fill our shop. As a zero-waste advocate, we will attempt to furnish all we can with reclaimed, secondhand structures. So far, 60% of furnishing have been secured as secondhand items, but still with a price tag of about $5,000 secondhand (compared to brand new would cost over $13,000). The less exciting items, such as the permitting process, operating systems, food scales, and label printers are hard to acquire secondhand and so those items will be purchased new, but we will be investing in ones that will last our lifetime so there is never a need to send it to the landfill ($3,000).  Once we are constructed, the funds will help fill our inventory of low-waste, environmentally conscious products. We are opening with over 150+ sustainable personal care and home essential products, and over 140+ zero waste bulk food products (approx.$10,000). We place our values specifically around making a positive environmental impact, and by doing that we are committed to offering as many resources as possible. This includes participating in 10+ recycling programs offering by TerraCycle ($2,000). Finally, we will invest in marketing to help spread the sustainable word and create a community full of like-minded individuals for those learning how to walk gently on the planet.

There are over 300 stores with a similar shopping model throughout the country, and we want to be the first to offer this opportunity to Sussex County, NJ.

There are two easy ways that you can help:

1) By spreading the word and creating awareness.

2) By purchasing rewards from this campaign.

Your contributions will support us as we build our full service, package-free grocery store that we have been dreaming of bringing to this community. 

For this campaign, we will approach our goal in two separate phases.

Goal #1: $10,000 Permitting process to make sure that everything meets health code standards and that we can move through the permit applications as efficiently as possible. Secondhand furnishings to stand by our commitment to reducing environmental impacts. Operating systems and Recycling programs.

Goal #2: 10,000 Purchasing new earth-conscious and organic inventory and supporting local and ethical businesses by building partnerships with our suppliers.

Our Team

Simple Bare Necessities is full of earth advocates, just like the community we are aiming to build. I, Mikaela Molnar, am the owner and founder of Simple Bare Necessities and I am blessed to have the help of my volunteering friends and family who are help making our dreams become reality and assisting to build the earth-conscious community our planet deserves.

Risks and Challenges

As a zero-waste store, we make every effort to be as low-waste as possible although it is not always going to be 100% zero waste behind the scenes. We are a transparent company, so that will not be shadowed. We are dedicated to working with our environmentally committed suppliers to create a closed loop system business to business, and we will be making all efforts to work with recycling programs like TerraCycle to keep as much waste out of the landfill as possible. This is an expensive commitment, but it is one we take seriously. We are committed to paying a livable wage to all future employees and are aimed at keeping prices affordable and increasing the accessibility to living a sustainable life.

Thank you from SBN founder Mikaela Molnar

I am proud to be a female business owner, and to have the opportunity to foster positive change for our community. Being raised in Sussex County, New Jersey has been a beautiful life so far, but New Jersey is a special home, and we are privy to the pollution that washes up on our beaches, that crowds out hiking trails in the mountains, and suffocates the streets of our cities. I am especially committed to preserving the beautiful lands in our area.

Thank you for being part of the movement towards a sustainable future! I sincerely appreciate every contribution and the effort you are making to share our message and mission with everyone around you. Thank you for being part of the SBN community. I cannot wait to welcome you into our store!