Neighbors Bryan Lierer and Alex Heppner were living in Northside in 2022, disappointed in the area’s lack of walkable and sustainable grocery stores. While the two were working in different industries at the time — Lierer in video production and Heppner in social work — they took it upon themselves to find a solution.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, single-use plastic packaging from supermarkets and grocery stores has contributed to over 82 million tons of waste, with over 40% of all plastic waste originating from packaging. Additionally, U.S. retail stores generate roughly 16 billion pounds of food waste each year.
To address this concern, many low-waste grocery stores have risen in popularity in the last several years. A low-waste grocery store focuses on eliminating or heavily reducing packaging in the items they offer, encouraging customers to bring their own containers for product refills as well as their own reusable bags. This aims to reduce both the plastic usage from regular grocery stores and the amount of food waste, by offering items in bulk and avoiding expiration dates with quick turnarounds. Additionally, these businesses typically aim to sell locally sourced items and engage in composting efforts.
In April 2023, Lierer and Heppner officially signed a lease for a low-waste grocery store of their own, and in March of 2024, Lierer’s Market was officially open – fulfilling their aspiration to establish a community-focused, sustainable grocery store right in their neighborhood.
“We really wanted a place that aligned with our values of sustainability, transparency and being low-waste,” Heppner said. “It took probably the better part of the year researching different products. And really researching the companies and the brands and what they stood for was how we made our selection.”
The market checked two boxes for Lierer and Heppner: It created a new store for Northsiders to shop at, and it did so with sustainability at its forefront, disrupting the single-use systems in place at standard grocery stores.
“Northside is a food desert,” Heppner said. “The closest grocery store is two miles away, which doesn't seem very far, but if you don't have a car, how are you gonna haul all of your groceries home? So, for us, it was really important not only to be able to refill home and personal care items, but also bring more food to the neighborhood and then to do that in a sustainable way.”
Lierer’s Market specializes in offering refills on pantry items and personal care items – ranging from canned beans, oats, pastas and flour to laundry detergent, dish soap, shampoo and conditioner. A vast majority of the products offered at the market are organic, non-toxic and contain little or no packaging.
“People are really into and are really supportive of our concept of bringing your own container because most people already have containers at home that they’re using, they just need the stuff to fill it, whether it’s a food item or a personal care item,” Heppner said.
While other grocery stores that offer bulk refills do exist in the Cincinnati area, Lierer and Heppner made strategic plans for their market to be more holistically sustainable in their business practices — making their market stand out.
“I think a lot of other places have things that you can get in bulk, but you have to use their plastic bags and that kind of defeats the purpose,” Heppner said. “So we worked with the health department to improve our concepts. We had to come up with protocols to make sure everything was safe and sanitary for our customers. As far as we know, we're the first to really promote reuse for our bulk section.”
Their sustainability promotions have extended beyond their customers, too. Lierer’s Market has collaborated with coffee sellers La Terza and Mom ‘n Em, whose roasted coffee they sell in bulk, to sell their items in sustainable packaging, creating a closed-loop system among their counterparts.
“The unique thing about the store is that we didn't just do this for us, we did this with community in mind, so collaborations are a big part of our mission and working together with different community organizations who are already focused on different ways to reduce waste,” Heppner said. “We know we’re not the only people who are conscious consumers or who want to be more conscious about their waste, so we want to show people that just because plastic is convenient doesn't mean it's necessarily the only way.”
While Lierer’s Market is heavily focused on sustainability and reducing plastic waste, there inevitably are some items they receive that do contain plastic packaging, such as bread, frozen meat, tortilla chips and dairy-free chocolate chips. Given that, Lierer said they have prioritized not only offering sustainable solutions for customers but ensuring their business follows the same standards.
“We wanted to take responsibility for the waste that we put out,” Lierer said. “We tried to prioritize items not in plastic, but some things you can't get away from. And so the items that we do sell in plastic, which are limited, you can bring back to us and we will recycle.”
In addition to the work they do in-house, Lierer and Heppner also work with other local environmental efforts and organizations, such as the Cincinnati Recycling and Reuse Hub. They have also created a neighborhood compost service with Queen City Commons.
“I doubt many groceries can say this, but in the two months that we've been open, I think we've accumulated less than a five-gallon bucket worth of trash that was sent to the landfill,” Lierer said. “Everything else is either recycled through curbside recycling or with the Cincinnati Recycling and Reuse Hub or we compost it.”
To avoid other potential food waste, Lierer and Heppner will also bring produce to local food pantries such as CAIN, which they both said makes the business even more fulfilling.
“I think community is a value that we both share,” Heppner said. “So it's just really cool to build a community-focused store. It feels like our heart and soul in a brick-and-mortar form. It feels really good.”
While Lierer and Heppner have already seen the success of their market in their community thus far, they hope that their store can be a place both for acquiring essentials as well as gaining valuable knowledge on sustainable living.
“Sustainability is a journey,” Lierer said. “I think we’ve made it more accessible to people who want to make more conscious efforts but don’t know how. We’ve given them a place where you can not only shop more sustainably, but we serve as a resource center in our own neighborhood.”
Lierer’s Market’s hours of operation are Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from noon- 8 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. They are closed on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Lierer’s Market, 4170 Hamilton Ave., Northside. More info: bio.site/lierers.market.
This story is featured in CityBeat's July 24 print edition.
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