By Kenna S. Eaton

Each month, I report to the board on how we are progressing on our long-term goals, which we call our Ends. These Ends reflect our aspirations—what we want to accomplish—and they are what makes us different from a regular grocery store. We publish these reports as a blog to keep our member-owners up to date on what we are doing.

The reports are organized by our five Ends, although not all are discussed in every report. Our Ends say that, as a result of all we do—

-    Our community is well-served by a strong cooperative grocery store, integral to the lives of our customers, our farmers, and our producers.

-    Our community has a resilient local and regional food economy, supported by our Co-op and our community partners.

-    Our staff and board have the knowledge, skills, and passion to make our cooperative thrive.

-    Our members and customers are proud to shop at a local cooperative grocery that is working to reduce its impact on the environment.

-    Our community is informed, engaged, and empowered to join us in making a difference.

March General Manager’s Report

Working Together to Nourish our Community

Market Relevance

As part of the NCG’s (National Cooperative Grocers) push to add new items to the Co-op Basics program—greatly expanding what we can offer at the lowest possible price—we will have over 60 new Co-op Basics items coming in over the next six months, ranging from paper products and frozen pizza to packaged spices and dried fruit (all Field Day items), plus Wild Harvest milk and pet food. So far this year, we’ve added three shelf-stable juices, packaged dry split peas, ½ gallon olive oil in a tin, and microwave popcorn. New items ship every month, so they will be incorporated to the shelf in stages. 

In the Bulk Department, we are have been re-arranging the bins. We are trying to make the layout more logical and sensible, while ensuring we follow health department guidelines regarding allergens. These guidelines have recently been updated with sesame added to the list of major allergens. We’ll be replacing any labels that are outdated or worn, plus some of the bins and scoops. Another change is that we will no longer be selling bulk kombucha, for a variety of reasons including challenges with getting a regular supply and the difficulty in maintaining the CO2 tanks. The cooler that holds highly perishable bulk items will be moving into the kombucha space.

It’s time for some deep cleaning, painting, and general sprucing up of the kitchen—where our staff truly works together to nourish us! Since this work will require us to temporarily close our kitchen, we are working to find ways to keep feeding folks. The possible solutions include taking food production off site, which, as you can imagine, is highly complicated. We’ll keep you updated as plans progress, and let you know what you can expect.

And just in case you missed it, we replaced our shopping carts in mid-February. The bottom half of the dark grey carts stuck out, making it difficult to navigate our small aisles, and people were running into equipment on such a regular basis that it was causing significant damage. The new carts have a smaller footprint and are easier to drive, and we hope will cause less damage to our store—and our ears!  We gave those “big toe” carts to Central Co-op, who were super happy to add them to their store.

Food System Development

Local new items include English hard apple cider from Raincoast Farms, located just outside of Port Townsend. English cider is dry, crisp, and non-carbonated, made from a mix of 17 varieties of apples, and aged in oak barrels. We also have a new line of calendula-based face care from Island Thyme, located in the San Juan Islands. Since 1996 Island Thyme has been creating botanically based skin and body care products in small batches in the apothecary studio on their farm. Grounds for Change packaged coffee and Bow Hill blueberry marinade have both returned to the shelf. We serve Grounds for Change coffee in the deli but hadn’t carried the packaged product for a few years. And last, but not least, the board demo of local Goodness Tea chocolate before Valentine’s Day was a success and continues to sell well.

Outreach

Several years ago, we helped form the Olympic Cooperative Network, a group of people and organizations interested in supporting the development of cooperatives in our region. Our Annual Gathering is slated for late March, where we (i.e., anyone who attends) will discuss if we are ready to move from an informal to a formal organization, which would hopefully allow us to increase our impact. Concurrently, the Jeffco Growers Network is in the early stages of exploring the possibility of forming a growers co-operative, which is very exciting.