What we carry
How we decide what to carry.
There is no buying department here. It is two of us, a shelf, and a short list of things we will not budge on.
01
We have met the maker
Every vendor on the shelf is somebody we have talked to, usually somebody we have visited. If we cannot tell you where a thing came from, it does not go out.
02
Made close by
If it can be grown or made in the Susquehanna Valley, that is who we ask first. Pennsylvania next. We do carry things from further out, but not many, and never as a shortcut.
03
Short labels win
We read the ingredients before you do. That rules out more than you would think, and it is the main reason some shelves here look a little empty in February.
Two words we use carefully
Local, natural, and honest about both.
Those two words get used loosely enough to mean nothing, so here is what we mean by them. Local means we can usually name the road it came down. Natural means we checked the label, not that anybody certified it.
We describe and we invite. We never diagnose, treat, or promise a cure.
Sustainability
Less packaging, shorter trips.
Compostable packaging where it holds up, refills where vendors will do them, and short enough supply lines that most of what we sell never sees a distribution center.
The company
Somewhere permanent to sell.
Our vendors get a permanent place to sell instead of a folding table on Saturdays, and The Commonwealth Project is working on more of them, one main street at a time.
About The Commonwealth Project LLC →We describe what we carry in food and wellness terms, never medical ones. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.