Home - REFILL. NOT LANDFILL.

WHO WE ARE

Anchorage’s first “unpackaged” mom-and-mom old-world refillery market. We provide convenient eco-friendly grocery, household and personal care choices for conscious consumers who wish to minimize waste, shop locally, give back and eliminate single-use plastics. A community-centered social enterprise, we give 1% back every day and feature locally made products.

TRANSPARENT

We do the research so you don’t have to! We are transparent about who our vendors are and how our products are made. We vet and label all of our products, and rate them based on our Blue Market Standard of sustainable, humanitarian, community-minded practices.
We are also honest about the waste that we can’t avoid.

SUSTAINABLE

We offer creative sustainable options for purchasing items with re-usable, repurposed, and recycled containers (new, from our "containers lending library," or from your kitchen).
Our Refillery Supports:
Refuse
Reduce
Reuse
Repurpose
Recycle

CONNECTED

Our store is more than just a shopping experience - it is inviting and creative, a conscious community of local vendors, shoppers and concerned citizens who want to change their habits to ensure a healthy planet.
Some ways we contribute:
1% Giving Back Program
Local Makers Pop-ups
Talk & Tinker Tuesdays
Partnerships

our 2022 4th Quarter
1% Giving Back Recipient

From October 1 - December 31, 2022, 1% of all of Blue Market AK's proceeds will go to Children's Lunchbox/Beans Café. Thank you for shopping with us and allowing us to Give Back and to help feed Alaska's children!

The Children’s Lunchbox History
In 1998 Kid’s Cafe, a non-profit organization feeding at-risk children in the Anchorage area was in search of a stable, responsible board of directors. Bean’s Cafe immediately realized that its mission of feeding the hungry should extend to the children of our community. Bean’s Cafe board members realized that many of the poorest children in our community are at risk of not having their daily nutritional needs met. While hunger affects people of all ages, it is particularly devastating for children. Even short-term episodes of hunger can cause lasting damage to a child’s development, putting children at risk for a range of cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and physical problems. When children receive the nutrition they need, they are more likely to move out of poverty as adults. This sparked a vision of “prevention” and Kids Cafe became a program of Bean’s Cafe.

In 2004, Bean’s Cafe renamed Kid’s Cafe to The Children’s Lunchbox as what started as a few hundred meals a month being delivered to a few programs quickly turned into a few hundred meals a day.

The addition of summer food programs as well as weekend food and pantry programs has only strengthened their work to assure no child is hungry. In 2019, The Children’s Lunchbox provided more than 300,000 meals to hungry children in Anchorage.

New sites and programs are added regularly as they work to feed every hungry child in our community. Their newest addition is the school food pantry/pantry box.

Our 1% Giving Back Recipients:
Friends of Fish Creek
Alaska Marine Conservation Council
AYEA (Alaska Youth for Environmental Action)
Alaska Seeds of Change
Alaska Sealife Center
Alaska Food Policy Council
Anchorage Waterways Council
Cook Inletkeeper
Alaska Common Ground
Alaska Wildlife Alliance
Alaska Community Action on Toxics
Bike Anchorage
Children's Lunchbox / Beans Cafe (current recipient Oct. 1 - Dec. 31)

2021 Statistics:
WITH just a sampling of our more popular products, we (and our customers) saved over 10,400 pieces of garbage from entering the Landfill in 2021!

WHAT we do

Re-use/ Repurpose / Recycle
Vet vendors for sustainability
Essential grocery, home, health
Refill your containers (or ours)
Support Local Vendors (>45%)
Giving Back - 1% every day
No single-use-plastics
Minimize waste
Build Community

our little blue market cart had a sampling of the products we now carry in our store

why we do it

To ensure that our blue planet's oceans and earth are healthy, sustainable, and endure for generations to come.
To be Anchorage's first neighborhood "unpackaged" refill store.
To foster a shift from quick, disposable shopping to mindful eco-friendly purchasing habits.
To join the global “zero-waste” movement.
To eliminate single-use plastics.
To emphasize sustainable local production.
To be a community-minded social enterprise

HOW we do it

Provide a shopping experience free from one-time-use-plastic-packaging
Offer ethically-sourced products (33% locally produced and grown, fair trade, repurposed/recycled materials from companies that give back)
Reduce our carbon footprint
Build a conscious community of environmentally-aware consumers
Give back to earth-friendly causes every day as 1% of our revenue goes to a nonprofit chosen for the quarter.