288: An Exciting Budget Friendly Way To Shop and Save On Whole Food Plant-Based Groceries

Well, hello there, sunshine. We are so excited to have you joining us today. Now, if you've been with us for long, you know how excited we are about showing you how to make whole food plant-based sustainable so that you can finally feel good and fully enjoy your life, and recently we found a great place to get high-quality whole food plant-based items in our area. That has already saved us a lot of money. Odds are, you can shop with this company in your area too, and so today, jared and I are excited to share the scoop about this shopping experience with you.

Hey sister, welcome to the Power on Plants podcast. Are you tired of staring into the fridge wondering what to eat so you can just feel better? Do you want to avoid spending hours in the kitchen making complicated meals in the name of health? Would you love to leave fatigue behind and finally have the energy to do all the things you want to do? Hi, we're Jared and Anita Roussel, christ followers, health care professionals, parents of four and big fans of great tasting food professionals, parents of four and big fans of great tasting food. We, too, tried exercising more, eating natural and clean foods, but we still found ourselves struggling with what we thought were changes that come with age or bad genes, and we weren't finding answers the traditional route, so we dug into the research and created our secret nutritional weapon sustainable plant-based living. The truth is, you can eat more whole plant foods and it's not hard. You just need the way that's realistic and delicious so you never feel deprived. If you're ready to enjoy your meals, no longer be held back by your health struggles and actively live your life, then you're in the right place. So grab your favorite plant-based cup of happy pop in those earbuds and let's get started. Well, hey there, sunshine. I hope you are having a fantastic week. Jared and I are thrilled to be with you today because we're excited to share with you, as always, great tips for sustainable, whole food, plant-based living. But today's extra exciting for me because I also always love saving money. I think it may be genetic, I'm not sure, but my dad loved to do this. He loved going to flea markets and auctions and finding things and saving money, and we're just all about getting a good deal. And let me tell you something when you can find a place to get whole food, plant-based items that are high quality products, I'm not just talking about discounted merchandise. We want high quality ingredients and they have it. This company has it. So recently we made an order. We're going to tell you all about our experience using this company and, when the episode is over, to learn more, you can go to poweronplantscom forward slash Azure. That's poweronplantscom forward slash Azure. That's poweronplantscom forward slash A-Z-U-R-E. But we're also going to tell you where you can get a scoop and actually see me videotape our haul, because I'm going to show you pictures of everything that I got so that you can know where to start your order, because when you're first starting out with somebody and they have so many great quality products, you're wondering what in the world should I order? And these are things that Jared and I have ordered, that we know are good, and it's just a great place to start. So, again, the company is called Azure. We've given you the address and we'll also link it below so you can go and check it out and get more information. So this is what happens Usually about once a month, a drop is made somewhere in your local area.

Now, for a long time we didn't live in an area where they made drops, but different people are finding out about this and a lot of people know about it now, and so you may be surprised to find out that you have a local drop in your area.

You can search that at the website I gave you. Again, we'll link that down below powerimplantscom forward slash A-Z-U-R-E and you can search the map and find out where the drop location is. They'll tell you the approximate time of drop off when the next delivery is going to be sent. They give you a cutoff date for order, and anytime during the month leading up to the drop off delivery date you can keep adding items to your cart. So it saves it cumulatively and you can take things out or add things to your cart until right before they ship it out, when they start packing it. Obviously you can't change your order, but it is so neat how it works and I want Jared to share it with you because last time he went it was so well organized so he can tell you about the whole experience.

It's really a neat system Because, like you said, you can place items in your list and then you can add, subtract up until the date of hey, this is a cutoff, because that's when they then pack everything. But they bring it on a semi and they aggregate everybody's orders. They put all the dry, non-refrigerated things, but the trucks also have a refrigerator on them, so they actually have cool and frozen things too. I mean, there's a wide variety of different things available here frozen things too.

I mean there's a wide variety of different things available here and the website is great because you can look at star ratings that people who have gotten those items previously as well and that will give you an idea of are they good quality, and most of the things are really good.

The only thing I've seen is in the past some people have said the fresh produce might not be the best idea, depending on where you are, because it may take a while, like ours is coming from Oregon to Florida. So the frozen things work well because it's a refrigerated truck, but the fresh produce doesn't tend to do as well or be as fresh, so we just usually don't get the fresh produce from there. But the frozen can be a very good idea and there are some other things that have just been incredible to order. Again, get inside Pi, our free group at powerandplantscom, forward slash Pi and I have dropped a video walkthrough in there for you so you can see exactly what we ordered and the things that we like and hear more about the experience in detail there. But Jared's going to tell you about pickup.

Yes, Well, one other thing too, though, is that, once delivery comes, that's when they then charge your credit card and then they ship it out, so on pickup day, the truck will come very well organized. They have a specific time so in the case of our drop off, it was 1.15, I believe, and they want you to be there about 15 minutes early, so this is really more of a community thing. So, like you said, they do have a location organizer, a drop-off organizer, who acts as a volunteer for that location. Everybody gets there about 15 minutes early. They lay down signs of the families who have ordered.

So it's just the name of the family, right, just?

the last name of the family, and then there were about one or two different people on the truck that would then hand off items. So everybody gets in a line, they grab the items, they see the last name that's on the box, the package, whatever it is, and then they go and drop it off at that respective sign. So you've got an assembly line going on there. So really they were able to get everything unpacked within like 15, 20 minutes. Seriously a well-oiled machine. So then, once it's all done, you pick up your stuff and then you just drive away.

Yeah, I mean it is seamless, pretty much seamless. I mean all you do is place your order. They pack it when it's ready to go. Now, if you order some things really early, like say you order something first of the month If for some reason they ran out of it, they won't charge you for it, but it just won't be in that order. So they can't guarantee that it's going to be there if you order it early on.

But you do get an email, once it ships, of all the items that were included, so you will know ahead of time if there was something on there.

And I can't even begin to describe to you how much money we've saved and what amazing products these are. I mean really high quality. We've been blown away by it. So far, we were even able to find some items that we had not tried in the past Different types of beans, different types of raisins, things like that. I mean you can order nuts, seeds, all kinds of things. Again, I'm going to walk you through everything we ordered. You'll get to see the bags and hear more about it inside our free group pie that's poweronplantscom.

Forward slash PIE. Join us on the inside and we'll walk you through it all, and if you have any additional questions about it, that's a great place to ask too. So we'll have all the links down below in the show notes. Listen, you are going to love this service. If you have it in your area, we highly recommend trying it out. It is well worth it, and when you get inside of Pi, make sure to share with us when you get your first order. We cannot wait to see all the amazing finds that you grab when you shop with Azure. Have a great week, sunshine, and we'll see you on the inside. Thank you.