What if our flour, sugar, corn meal, baking mixes, etc....
CAME IN A CLOTH SACK again!?!?!?
Wouldn't that be WONDERFUL!?!?!?
I keep thinking this and excuse me if someone has already brought it up here, I'm still new and can't possibly get through all the posts AND SEW!~:)
What if we all wrote and bombarded them with requests? Would it make a difference? I would CERTAINLY buy that product, as long as it was a quality product. However, if it was a quality product, then all the more reason for packaging it nicely and in an appealing manner.
I'm so surprised with all the "green" and whatever going on... that nobody has done this. We quilters are a HUGE group of consumers~!!!!
Besides us, there are all these backyard chicken farmers, hobby farmers,etc. that would love their feed in cloth also.
What do you think?

I suspect it is all about money...the other "green" motivator!

HA!~ VERY GOOD!!~ :)
But, would it be MORE than a cardboard box? After all, these "feed and flour sacks" started as an easy/economical way to pkg. If you look at how they are done with this huge sewing machine running across the top... I've had chickens, so I know you just pull that string and open it.
Oh, then the "safety" aspect. Just thought of that. But, you could still pkg it in a sealed plastic bag, like you get when you open the cardboard box.... I just don't know. This is why I thought I'd see what ya'll had to say.

I bet there would be fabric designers ao staff because they would compete with other sugar/flour/cornmeal companies. I would have so much of things in my house because I would probably need yardage.

I would buy it! :-)

That's kind of funny.

Way back when, they did come in cloth bags.

It's not really practical anymore. When those products came in fabric bags people mostly cooked from scratch. Plus when those products came in fabric bags more people than not sewed.

You could also pkg. baking mixes. What if a cost comparison was done and it was the same price or less than a cardboard box? I don't think folks KNOW what a cardboard box costs to produce and print and dispose of. Plus, the graphics/ink involved. It's more than you'd think. IN a lot of pkg. , the cost you are paying is more than the contents. Perfect example? CEREAL!!!!!~
Not in the same category, but Coca Cola when it comes to pkg. and advertising...PENNIES is what it costs for the actual product. So much of what we buy goes for pkg and advtsg.

Well, I may travel in a small circle, but everywhere I go, folks would rather grow a cotton or bamboo plant, than cut down a tree. AND I"m NOT an enviromentalist. Also, everyone know of is a quilter , or has a quilter in their family these days or KNOWS one... It's BIG business!~The more I think about this, the more intrigued I become with the idea.

I go into a health food store and SEE what people pay for "soy ink and recycled boxes". The thing is, they have NO Idea what that actually COSTS!~
Sorry, I guess growing up in small business and have had my own for a very long time, I just look at things differently.

Remember when you could get a glass inside a box of detergent? Or even at the gas station for a fill up? How about those trading stamps that you could trade in for household goods? Yes, I'm really that old.

Clynns:
I use to get to write Santa and ask for....
from using the S&H Green Stamps store! It was right next to Winn Dixie and as a kid, I'd "window shop". lol I was more ready to get those stamps from the cashier at checkout and keep them safe until I got them home to put them in "the book" than my mother! I'm ONLY 44!!!!~
Great idea!~
Folks don't think twice about paying for a glass from the dollar store 1.00. How much do they think that glass costs?!?! VERY LITTLE.... It's all doable.

I wish A LOT of things would go back to "how it use to be"! I use to love going to the gas station and watching the full service guy pump the gas, check under the hood, etc.

LOVED, LOVED, LOVED getting the green stamps and added them to the book while mama put the groceries away.

Could go to the corner store with a dollar and get a sack full of candy.

and so on, I am NOT that old but old enough to remember simpler times.

Sigh.....

would be cool, IF they did not treat all that fabric with pesticides, and other chemicals..that would then end up in your food!

As wonderful an idea as this is it just isn't possible today. Not because of money or even treated fabrics. Its because of the Crazies out there.

[quote=RenaB]I wish A LOT of things would go back to "how it use to be"! I use to love going to the gas station and watching the full service guy pump the gas, check under the hood, etc.quote]

When our family ( maybe about 1958 or so), went on a car trip one weekend, we stopped at a gas station that had maybe a dozen or more pumps. Several men in white! uniforms came running out. One asked Dad( the driver) how they could help, and said soda and snacks were available inside, and we were welcome to use the clean restrooms. Another had opened the hood, and was checking fluid levels. Two men were washing windows, another checked the tires. The tank was filled, we were asked not only if they could do anthing else, but was everything done to our satisfaction. Only then, the bill was presented with thanks. Now, that was service. Memories.
One of our local grocers carries flour in sacks still. a couple of dollars more than paper sacks.

You're forgetting about the bar symbols that are needed for scanning. It would not be practical to print those on fabric because they would crack or flake off. I have noticed that you can sometimes buy big bags of rice in fabric bags. They are not very nice though.

I would buy it, especially if it was a pattern I remembered loving as a child in the late 1930s...cream with little red feathers on it.
I adored that dress Grandma made me from those feed sacks.

I imagine it is a food safety problem now. Cloth doesn't protect from all the little beasties that exist in warehouses. But I think it would be great if they did use the cloth again.

I imagine it is a food safety problem now. Cloth doesn't protect from all the little beasties that exist in warehouses. But I think it would be great if they did use the cloth again.

When I was cleaning out my Grandmas house after her death I found tons of little boxes that contained a towel,
they came in boxes of Breeze? detergent. And My mom told me that Dolly Partin was the spokes person.

I would love it it our dry goods came in fabric sacks.

They still trade stamps in Germany

Interesting you should bring this up. Just this weekend I un-earthed some heirloom quilt tops, hand pieced by my great grandmother in-law. One of them, a Dresden Wheel, was appliqued to pieced flower sacks. As I showed it to my husband, we mused about why that kind of sack is no longer popular.

I remember when potatoes came in burlap bags and my Mom would make rugs out of them. Now they come in plastic bags and the potatoes don't last as long in the plastic because they sweat to much.

Not long ago I saw flour in sacks at Sam's.

I just don't understand this "green" stuff they want you to buy fabric bags in the store to carry your groceries or whatever out but go down the isle and buy plastic garbage bags and everything else in plastic containers people use to really be "green" mild, soda, canned goods all kinds of stuff came in glass returnable bottles there was no plastic for the garbage and not until all this other stuff changes why worry about "green"

If everything came in cloth sacks, I'd have to spend more time cooking to empty them out and less time sewing! I keep telling hubby the only place cooking and cleaning come before quilting is in the dictionary!

[quote=Cosy]
I can remember when you actually got "Service" at a service station. That was back when gas was .25 cents a gallon (my dad received a discount because he worked for one of the major oil companies!). Buying food in cloth bags would be wonderful. I wonder about coffee? Seems I have seen beans in cloth bags being loaded on/off ships along the Mississippi River - or I could be longing for simpler times. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

Having worked in food services at one time, the idea of fabric flour, feed, sugar, etc sacks was scrapped for many reasons. Mainly cost! But, also for sanitary reasons and becuse bugs get into the sacks easier than the heavy paper. I sincerely doubt that flour packed in sacks will come back. But, I think that there are a few companies that still make "fake" flour sacks. I remember seeing them once, but don't ask me where. My Part-heimers (as opposed to Altheimers) kicks in too often.

We can get flour in fabric sacks. There is a great difference in price, so most would not buy it, I am guessing. It's that other 'green' thing coming into play.

Editted to add: The bar codes are printed on a paper label that can be soaked off.

S & H Green stamps !!! I remember those along with the glass or towel in a box of detergent. How about the dinosaurs at the Sinclair gas stations-the ones with the big green dinosaur in front of it !(I remember it was a treat to go out of town and get those dinosaurs!)

We had Blue Chip trading stamps, too - some stores gave out one type and some, the other, so some people were loyal to one store or the other as much as for the type of stamps as anything else. :)

If they did this would I hae to go back to cooking?

Thanks for my laugh of the day.

:-D

Well paper is cheaper than material now days, so doubt if it happens. I use to wear flour sack dresses when I was a little kid. Oh, darn, just gave my age away. laughing

I believe you can still get large bags of flour in cloth bags at the grocery store. I've seen it many times.

I would love the FREE cloth.
J J

Our coffee shop on the corner has beans delivered in grain sack bags, so I asked to buy a couple and they said that they recycle them into shopping bags and then sold them. i wanted a couple to make grain sack flowers so I will have to try to get them from another coffee shop

First of all, I'd purchase those products however; when things came in cloth sacks, cardboard wasn't invented yet. When it was, cloth sacks went by the way side. Maybe when cotton is cheaper than recycled cardboard that trend will make a come back.

MARVELOUS IDEA!

The product could be put in a plain plastic bag and then into the feed sack. I would be willing to pay a little extra for a product like that. It would still be economical on getting the feed sacks.

Come visit Oregon. State law prohibits self serve gas. Here, you pull up to the pump, roll down your window and hand the attendant your card. He pumps your gas, washes your window and some places offer to check your oil. They say this service costs us 3 cents a gallon. Worth it to me.