Shop bag ideas

[Tzporah]

I've been using my large shop bag more now that the farmer's market has restarted.

I would love a small loop to help hold it up on the plastic bag holder at the grocery store. For some reason, I have trouble getting it to stand at the self checkout stand and it keeps asking for the employee to come and help because it doesn't recognize that I bagged the item until I get it about half full.

An insert for the bottom to make it a bit stiffer, or maybe that memory wire that the collapsable toys/tents are made with around the bottom. The poor strawberries always end up all over the bottom of the bag and my cardboard solution, while it works, gets messy and just doesn't match.

If anyone has other solutions, please share.

[Lani]

I would love it if there was a pocket the bag could collapse into.

[moriond]

I would love it if there was a pocket the bag could collapse into.

Lani, you can fold the Shop Bag so that it fits into one of its own side pockets. Take a look at Maverick's video in the http://forums.tombihn.com/customer-p...to-itself.html thread. I don't use quite the same technique of "stuffing" the bag into the pocket that he shows in the video. I find that I can get a neater folded up bag if I start with the bag inverted and flat, pocket side up, and then invert the pocket around the rest of the flattened bag, as described in the blog. This looks neater for the small (regular) size Shop Bag than it does for the Large Shop Bag.

moriond

[backpack]

I've been using my large shop bag more now that the farmer's market has restarted.

I would love a small loop to help hold it up on the plastic bag holder at the grocery store. For some reason, I have trouble getting it to stand at the self checkout stand and it keeps asking for the employee to come and help because it doesn't recognize that I bagged the item until I get it about half full.

An insert for the bottom to make it a bit stiffer, or maybe that memory wire that the collapsable toys/tents are made with around the bottom. The poor strawberries always end up all over the bottom of the bag and my cardboard solution, while it works, gets messy and just doesn't match.

If anyone has other solutions, please share.

The plastic bottom of a large rectangular Tupperware, Lock and Lock or other plastic box would help steady and weight the bottom a little.
A greener way would be to use a tin box such as a cookie tin or a lightweight basket of the same dimensions.


I also believe that the way things are packed is very important, make sure to pack your hard vegetables such as carrots, cabbages and cauliflowers first then hard fruits like apples then lettuce like soft green salad ingredients then mushrooms then tomatoes then berries.

I go to the grocery store and not the farmer[s market, yet, so everything is packaged so I pack not only taking the fruit or vegetable into consideration but it's packaging.

For examples, tomatoes in a cardboard tray with soft plastic overwrap or mesh will go on top of the mushroom in their styrofoam trays. but cherry tomatoes in a plastic container will got under the mushrooms.*

Of special interest are pumpkins and gourds which of course should go on the lowest layer but are usually awkwardly shaped, I don't know what other
Shop Bag users experience is with those two items.


* That phrase has brought up to my attention the amount of packaging I am still using.

Thank you for this post Tzporah.


In a quest to fill my Large Shop Bag full of fruits and vegetable, we have been eating a lot more of those.

Ginormous Thank You to all the Tom Bihn Inc Crew for making a dietary change so much fun and so rewarding.

[blackfungi]

you just have to put the more solid stuff on the bottom and the more fragile stuff on top.

[Lani]

Lani, you can fold the Shop Bag so that it fits into one of its own side pockets.

Oooooo OK why didn't I ever think of that? D'oh!

[Tzporah]

My problem might be that I'm not putting enough into it. The last few trips to the farmer's market, I only picked up two baskets of strawberries. Those went in the main compartment with my wallet and phone in one side pocket and the small items from the pharmacy in the other side pocket. Maybe I should get the smaller version..

I will say that smashed strawberries wipe right off the dyneema fabric. Hard to beat that!

I like the tin lid idea.. will have to look out for one.