Having opened it's doors as the first plastic bag-free food retailer in the Comox Valley almost one year ago, Cumberland’s own Seeds Natural Food Market is now happy to be participating in a larger Valley-wide initiative to encourage reduced plastic bag use.

“Grab Your Bag" is the final phase of the Comox Valley Chamber of Commerce campaign to dramatically reduce single use plastic bags. It includes 64 local businesses and agencies leading an effort to address the excessive use of plastics in our day to day lives. "It's been an interesting ride to be the first store not giving out single-use bags this past year" says Seeds owner Tina Willard-Stepan. "Customers have been extremely supportive. We've developed lots of ways of making it easy for them - we will loan re-useable bags to regular customers, for instance, so that we don't leave people hanging if they have forgotten their own bag." She adds - "It will be much easier for us to communicate our 'bag-free' message now that other reatailers are focussing their attention on it as well."

The campaign kicks off on February 9th, culminating on February 13th "Launch Day" with special events across the Comox Valley. Re-usable “Shop Local, Shop Cumberland” Bags will be for sale for 99 cents each starting next week at each of the participating business. Seeds will be celebrating the day with free munchies, great sale prices throughout the store and draw prizes.