How it started
Emilie Rider - Co-owner
Our company is comprised of two sisters who care about the earth! It was created in hopes of providing people an outlet for aiding the environment! The idea started when my sister, Valerie, returned from Australia, where almost all stores expected customers to provide their own reusable shopping bags. She wound up with a collection of reusable shopping bags in Australia and brought her new habit back to me, Emilie, in the states.
We really wanted to create an alternative for paper and plastic bags, which can be so harmful to the environment. We just felt that the world needs these bags.
We wanted a product that was durable yet affordable – a great bag that the masses could and would use. We created what we thought was the perfect size (a compilation of all the bags that Valerie amassed while in Australia) – which is about the size of the average brown paper bag with a comfortable handle.
The name – Brown to Earth Bag Company – came about from our quest for an improved version of the traditional “brown bag” and the quest for us to help the earth. The play on the phrase “down to earth” – just seemed to be the perfect fit!
At first we targeted grocery stores and retailers and sold out all of our stock quickly, but we soon realized the bags have multiple uses. Since then we’ve sold bags to many types of business for lots of other purposes (promotional / advertising, fundraising, green projects, conventions, etc.)
There wasn’t much competition and the idea was novel to start with. Today, reusable shopping bags can be found everywhere (although we think ours is the best!). We are happy that so many retailers on are board and that other companies are promoting such awesome, sustainable products. And the fundraisers using promotional bags are great as well!
We feel that the habit of carrying reusable bags into a store each time is still an obstacle for Americans because they’re simply not accustomed to using reusable bags when shopping. We are confident that in time, more people will remember to use them by keeping them with them in the car. We also hope that as time goes on, more retailers will reward consumers for using these bags. An incentive always helps reinforce new and better behavior!
We’ve sold thousands of them. It’s helping us, and it’s got to be helping the environment.
- Crest Foods
We love doing custom promotional bags for our customers, which creates an advertising opportunity for them and allows them to publicize their name and logo. Our first customer – Crest Foods company manager and direct store delivery buyer, Jeff Fulks, once said Brown To Earth bags are a win-win situation because both the customer and retailer save money. “They’ve been outstanding as far as sales go,” Fulks said. “We’ve sold thousands of them. It’s helping us, and it’s got to be helping the environment. We’re behind it 100 percent.”
We enjoy what we do – helping individuals, as well as organizations, find their way to improving their footprint on this planet – by way of a really great bag! We hope you’ll allow us to help you as well.