HalfArroba – Mercearia dos Sentidos

HalfArroba – Mercearia dos Sentidos is a bulk grocery with a café on Avenida Emídio Navarro, in the centre of Viseu. Two friends, Miguel and Luísa, opened it in July 2021 as a project that brings together sustainability and cooking. The name joins half with arroba, an old Portuguese unit of weight of about 15 kilos.

Food is sold loose. Customers bring jars or bags from home, fill them with the quantity they want, then weigh and pay at the counter. Taking only what is needed, without single-use packaging, is how the shop sets out to cut the rubbish produced, as it puts it, product by product, person by person, home by home. Viseu's tourism office describes a grocery that gives priority to sustainable farming and Portuguese origin, guided by the circular economy and reuse.

Besides food, the shelves carry products and utensils for the home, solid and liquid detergents, personal hygiene, cosmetics and baby care, chosen for a way of life that produces as little waste as possible. The café serves fully plant-based meals during the day, and the shop also prepares whole cakes and catering to order.

The space is meant to be used: it hosts talks, workshops, tastings and presentations. Within the city of Viseu, meals from the café can be delivered at home by a local partner whose deliveries are fully electric.