Shopping net natural fiber

The shopping net is undoubtedly one of the most intelligent containers mankind makes use of: unused it shrinks to the size of the palm of your hand, filled it stretches just ever so far as the contents require. After the revival and re-disappearance of our iron yarn shopping net (the supplier unfortunately no longer manufactures it), we spent a long time looking for an equivalent replacement. Finally Philipp Bree found it for us: a traditional fiber bag from northern Laos, made of extremely robust leaf fibers. It is made entirely by hand, from the extraction of the fibers, their processing and drying to the knotting of the bag. It takes two weeks to complete all the steps involved in making a net - each one unique, with a different mesh pattern, dimensions and capacity. Thanks to the material and production process, the shopping nets are durable, flexible and, above all, excellent alternatives to plastic bags and sacks. Their ecological balance is even better than cotton bags.

Our palm fiber bags are made in various Khmu villages. The indigenous Khmu people are one of the original inhabitants in northern Laos. Some suggest that its roots go back 5,000 years, which would make it one of the oldest cultures in the world. Traditionally, the Khmu used bags made from the bast fibers of an indigenous plant (Pueraria phaseoloides - tropical kudzu) to collect fruits and vegetables. Due to the increasing use of plastic bags also in Laos, the bags were less and less in demand and with the slow disappearance of the bags, the artisanal knowledge of their production was also in danger of being lost.
In 2005, the JungleVine® Foundation started the "Nature Bag" project with the Khmu, for which meanwhile about 1,000 Khmu artisans in about 40 villages produce a wide variety of bags and pouches from natural fibers. This allows the Khmu living isolated in remote villages not only a source of income at fair conditions and without having to leave the home village, but at the same time contributes to the preservation of traditional, artisanal knowledge.