THE 'GREEN' MAP
a map which will indicate all the sustainable stores in the city of Braga, Portugal.
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In the Green Map of Braga, you will find stores in Braga which are environmental friendly. Plant-based restaurants, eco stores, bio markets and second hand stores are some of the places you can eat or shop without feeling guilty.
Their philosophy is the respect of the environment and the aim of getting people closer to this lifestyle.
The purpose of this map is to help the residents of Braga to have a quick and easy overview about their oppotrtunities to shop sustainable. We took the time and visited 5 of them to share our experiences and impressions with you.
If afterwards you feel inspired to create a guide like this for your own city, just scroll further down, where you can find an easy description on how to do so.
Natureside in Braga Municipal Market, Praça do Comércio, 4700-370
At the beginning of our research for sustainable shops in Braga with found on google maps a very cute sustainable store inside of the Municipal Market that we decided to visit first. When we entered the store, Daniela welcomed us with a smile, and she was eager to provide us all the information both for the store, the vision and the positive impact that this store has to the environment.
She started saying to us the story of how the life brought her together with a man called Tiago with who she shared the same interest. They first realized that at home they had large quantities of single-use packaging and mostly plastic. Although they recycled everything possible this didn’t make sense to them and they decided to start looking for alternatives.
Firstly, they started experimenting with various products and they started changing their habits at home. The replacement of plastic bags with cloth bags to go to the market to buy fruits and vegetables, the shampoo and softener and the reusable straws were the first steps to free themselves step by step from the absurd quantities of plastic packaging they had at home. And to make the long story short this is how they decided to create a store, in order to give the chance also to other people to try the alternative lifestyle and adopt a more environmental healthy position towards life. They dreamed of a better, healthier world while giving the opportunity to others to do so. That is how this project was born, full of life, smells, and flavors, a store called Natureside.
In this store you can find natural, vegan, cruelty free and the most important products which are made to support the sustainability of the environment. For example, you can find organic food like seeds, chocolate and tea or even cosmetics like reusable makeup disc removers, eco-friendly toothbrushes and solid soaps for body, face and for the dishes. During our interview Daniela also informed us about the eco-friendly detergent for clothes.
Nicole Argyropoulou
2. ZOURI SHOES - R. de São Gonçalo, 4710 Braga
Fashion with impact
Continuing our tour, we came across a rather small looking shop, selling shoes. But it took us only a closer look to recognize that this shoe store is not like any other, but holds a unique and mind blowing idea.
Joana Monteire, a former customer and passionate part of the project for almost two years now, kindly explain to us the vision behind ZOURI. “Our main goal is the protection of the ocean.”
Yes, you understood it right. Fashion can help our planet. With the help of six hundred volunteers, ZOURI removed 1 ton of plastic from the Portuguese beaches and incorporates it into all their shoes. “Each pair takes the equivalent of 6 to 8 plastic bottles.”
How? Washed, shredded and mixed with natural rubber the harmful substance turns into a usable material.
But that´s not all. ZOURI´S approach is to be environmental-friendly in many ways.
It´s vegan. “We had a research for the best alternative materials.”
It´s local. The shoes are 100% made and designed in Portugal. “The sneakers are handmade in Guimaraes and the sandals are produced in Barcelos.” The ZOURI store in Braga is unique but you can also find the products in other stores and of course online.
It´s sustainable.
From the shoe sole to the shoe box: Everything is thought-out.
Anastasia Yurovsky
3. SANNO - Largo de São João do Souto 13a, 4700-326 Braga
Our third store was a healthy and sustainable restaurant. Sanno is a new recent restaurant located in the city centre of Braga.
Sanno emphasises its dishes offering a wide variety of meals prepared with food and ingredients that respect various types of diets and food styles (vegetarian, vegan, low carb, paleo, etc...) or simply for customers looking for a healthy and delicious meal.
Our team, 17 colours had the opportunity to visit this well know healthy restaurant having the pleasure to meet the owner itself. Carlos from Madrid decided to start-up this restaurant and opened it in 2019. Offering the people of Braga a delicious and sustainable way of eating. Since Carlos opened his restaurant since the beginning has been getting well known and spread the word around Braga thanks to his good quality-price dishes.
Sanno states that his unique selling product that makes difference itself from other restaurants are that they only use real, healthy foods, without refined sugars, without additives, and without colouring. They respect the essence of the food itself, the nutrients and vitamins that only they can offer you, thus avoiding any food that has been artificially transformed and that contains ingredients such as sugar, dyes, oils, additives, among others that they call ultra-processed. In addition, Sanno offers you enjoy its dishes in a unique environment. They have an outdoor terrace and a large, stylish, and comfortable interior space allowing you to enjoy their food at any time of the day.
What are you waiting for..!? Come and eat at Sanno! Eat real and healthy food!! Adonis Molina
INSTAGRAM: sanno.healthy.realfood/
WEBSITE: sanno
4. Gosto Superior - Praça Mouzinho de Albuquerque 29 Braga, Portugal
„Our intention was to give delicious, affordable food for everybody.”
„Our intention was to give delicious, affordable food for everybody.”
When we entered the interior of the first vegetarian store in Braga, we met Fabio, standing on a ladder, painting the walls.
From the 19th of April, restaurants in Braga will finally be allowed to host people inside and Gosto Superior will welcome the long-awaited guests in a beautifully renovated environment.
Though he obviously had some work to do, Fabio agreed to share his time with us, 4 young foreigners, randomly asking for an interview. We sat down comfortably, among the paint and the tools and he explained to us the story of his restaurant.
INSTAGRAM: gostosuperior.pt
WEBSITE: gostosuperior.pt
“ I am a vegetarian for the last 32 years and we opened up the restaurant in 2001…” Back than it was a real challenge to keep a vegetarian lifestyle. The opportunities for eating outside of the house were limited and the food was very expensive. “Money should not stop people to do it!”
Fabio and his family wanted to spread the seeds and took the risk of opening up the first entirely vegetarian store in Braga. “Because we strongly believe that we shouldn´t eat animals for living. We can do just fine without eating them, killing them.”
Fabio himself was inspired by the indian philosphy of food and the treatment of your environment. "Somehow all the thing that you do will come back to you." His food is not only about vegetarianism, it is about respect and consciousness.
19 years later Gosto Superior is a vegetarian store among many others in Braga. Society opened up to this topic and nowadays many creatives propose various delicious alternatives. “We want them to offer something that they could say during the meal: `Oh I am not eating meat!´, because they were satisfied.”
Things are changing. Be it because of ethics, climate change or because of health, people decrease their consumption of meat. Because the planet can not sustainso many people eating meat....So join them! And for a delicious, affordable way to do so, that grab your friends and enjoy at Gosto Superior!
Anastasia Yurovsky
In general, we enjoyed a lot our talk in the “Cork store” and we will for sure recommend it to everyone how wants to buy eco-friendly and local products. It is one of the oldest stores in the region and offers very beautiful and unique products. We hope that in the future there will be more stores like this, and the people will know and understand the advanteges of using cork products.
5. Corkstore - R. de São Marcos 118, 4700-308 Braga
In the city centre of Braga, we found the “Cork store”. It looked like small from the outside but inside there was a big variety of products made only by Portuguese cork. One of the most interesting facts about the store is that it is not focussed on tourists but it sales everyday products mainly for the local people of Braga region. As we walked in, we saw shoes, bags, bottles, magnets, hats, kitchen products, wallets, jewelleries… and many more cork products. I personally got impressed with a fancy cork chair that was in the centre of the store!
Firstly, we talked with the saleswoman, who showed us the products and shared her knowledge about cork with us. She was very polite and happy to talk with us in English. We learned that some of the products are made in industries at the north of Portugal but most of them are handmade. During our talk we got impressed by the beautiful products and the detailed work that we saw in them. The saleswoman told us about the cork fields at the south of Portugal. She also mentioned that the cork tree is protected by law in Portugal and even when somebody buys a piece of land, he is not allowed to cut the cork trees inside it! Apart from that we learnt about the big amount of CO2 that the cork trees observe and their eco-friendly role. It is also worth to mention that it is not needed to cut all the cork tree when we cut the part of the tree that we need to make cork products. Portugal is the main producer of cork in the world!!! Christina Kontelli
INSTAGRAM: corkstore_braga/
WEBSITE: corkstore.pt
Now it´s your turn!
Make your own.
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