By Kenna Eaton, General Manager of the Food Co-op

Each month, I report to the board on what is happening in the store as well as our progress on our long-term goals, which we call our Ends. These Ends reflect our aspirations—what we want to accomplish—and they are part of 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.

Our Ends

The general manager strives to provide these benefits to our member-owners and community while operating a strong grocery store:

•         Strengthen and advocate for our local food system, with a vibrant culture of appreciation and support for local farms and producers.

•         Treat people well, increasing equity and access by providing a safe, welcoming, and educational environment.

•         Treat the planet well, by modeling environmental stewardship and regularly sharing our accomplishments and challenges with member-owners.

July Update on Store and Progress on Ends

Working Together to Nourish our Community

Store Update

Most of you are aware that our largest (but not the only) hot water heater for the kitchen broke down early in June. Its age and fuel source (propane) made it difficult to repair and/or replace. We did end up repairing it, but we’re now looking at future options, such as replacing it with an electric version, which would reduce our carbon footprint as well as make it easier to repair. Our kitchen staff worked hard behind the scenes to find ways to prepare most of our regular items while still following food safety guidelines. Turns out that much of our hot food is prepared in a steamer—and no hot water means no steamer. Food for thought.

Exterior painting of the entire store began in mid-May, and by the end of June, we had made significant progress. There have been plenty of surprises along the way, like discovering that the large cedar poles used in various places were painted two different colors—some were beige, others grey—which made our task just that much harder. Our end goal was to “marry” the colors and textures as much as possible, preserving the wood when possible, and creating a cohesive whole—but like my socks, they may not actually match! The painters will take a break for six weeks, returning to finish up after they complete another project.

Good food at a good price. We have a few new Field Day Co-op Basics items on our shelves: canned kidney beans, almond flour, frozen fish sticks and fish fillets (which can be found in the meat department freezer). Our next round of new-item shelf “resets” will focus on cooking oils and cleaners. 

Ends Update

Local

We have one new Local 5 vendor, Smackrels pet treats. These use Mary’s organic hearts and livers, and they are freeze dried and sealed in a glass jar. There are two flavors—original and blueberry—with one more to come, green banana bites. We received our first sample/prototype of this item in February, and after four months of work, they were able to put it on our shelf. We are excited to have this great new addition to our pet food selection on aisle 2.

Remember eating lots of cherries last summer? Collectively, our customers purchased four tons of sweet cherries from Tonnemakers Farm in eastern Washington. We already have the first Tonnemakers cherries in, and they are scrumptious. Sadly, we won’t be getting stone fruit from them this year as there was a problem with pollination. We will be searching out other sources for farm-direct stone fruit. In the meantime, Silva Family Farm from Whidbey Island started strawberry deliveries in mid-June. 

People

The staff Workforce Engagement and Enrichment team is busy organizing another fabulous Summer Staff Party—so on Thursday, July 30th, the store will close early, which will allow us to shower our hard-working staff with an evening of music, food, and fun at beautiful Raincoast Farms. Last year, staff enjoyed supporting local musicians, artists, food and drink vendors, and we plan to continue that tradition.

In June, we sponsored the Port Townsend Pride Festival and raised funds during May and June for LGBTQ+ friendly organizations through our Beans for Bags program.

By making our Annual General Meeting in June virtual, we tried to ensure as many members as possible could participate if they wished. At the AGM, we discussed how 2023 was for the Co-op and members heard from our board candidates. Additionally, we pledged a $1 donation to the Jefferson County Food Bank for every vote cast during the election period, which closes July 10th. Last year we raised $700 for the Jefferson County Food Banks—let’s see if we can beat that number this year!

And our in-store BBQ raffle was showcased on our grilling display, adding a little extra fun for shoppers over the Memorial Day holiday, and there will be more fun raffles to come this summer.

Planet

Our staff green team performed the store’s first post-pandemic waste audit in June. At first blush our largest contribution to the landfill is “contaminated” (that is, used) plastic and paper. The committee will be reviewing the results and making a list of their recommendations.

Staff also worked to re-organize what we call our waste stream area. It’s the north side of our property where we store trash and recyclables until they can be picked up. The re-org makes a lot of sense, and everyone is pretty happy with the results. We’ll be adding a third aluminum and bottle receptacle to keep up with the summer volume. If you’ve read this far, please remember that we can’t take your home trash or recycling. Truly, we don’t have the space or capacity to manage extra in addition to what we generate.

Lastly, staff have been hard at work preparing for Plastic-Free July. For the month of July, our bulk room will remove all single-use plastic bags and containers, and we’ll only offer our paper and cellulose bags. Instead of plastic containers for honey and oil, we will offer you soup cups or paper cartons from the kitchen and sanitized jars from our Jar Savers program. We encourage you to bring your own containers and bags—and we will even give you a bean for every 5 bags/jars you re-use. And yes, this will be in bulk only. There will still be bags available in produce, as we’re not quite ready to challenge ourselves that much! We’re excited to see how this trial goes. Thank you for helping.