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 refreshed 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.

Market Relevance

During the past month, staff worked hard to keep the shelves stocked even as food-system disruptions caused us to look elsewhere for replacements. One of their creative solutions was to bring in pallets of products that meet all of our guidelines yet are brands we don’t normally carry. Fortunately, we were able to use our closed dining area as a staging and storage area to ensure we have food and paper products to meet customer needs.

As of mid-month, July sales were up over last year and close to budget. The customer count is down by 25% but the average transaction is up by 40%. We plan to offer curbside grocery shopping beyond the COVID crisis, and so we continue to work through the various issues surrounding online ordering and the new e-commerce platform that will make ordering goods easier for shoppers. Also, during this period when masks are required to shop inside our store, we have decided to make the 10% service fee optional for all users.

Food System Development

There’s lots of amazing local produce in stock now—and we love it! At the same time, we sell 3-pound bags of apples year-round, and the profits go to support Farm to School programs such as The Community Wellness Project (CWP). During the second quarter, the CWP helped to make the Chimacum High School Food Truck a reality. Now young entrepreneurs are making business plans to provide local food at school events and farmers markets.

We had over 20 new Local WA items in the last month. Many are line extensions of Alaffia, Booda Organics, and Island Thyme personal care. Also new is Kate’s favorite, three flavors of Molly Moon ice cream from Seattle. And we had one new Local 5 item–Ginger Pear Sausage from One Straw Ranch.

Environmental Stewardship

We are piloting a new program that I am excited about, which will help reduce the amount of plastic we send to the landfill. PT Potential, brainchild of Roarke Jennings, will be hauling away (via his bike) plastic produce totes, which he’ll grind up and repurpose into “lumber,” similar to Trex, that can be used in local building and gardening projects. We’ll be tracking how much plastic he takes away and following up with where it goes in an upcoming issue of our newsletter Around the Table.

Thriving Workplace

We continue to administer Covid-related staff leave and work to ensure our staff have the information they need and access to all the options available to them. In recognition of the ongoing challenges of these times, we have decided to make the COVID-19 stress pay of $2/hour to all staff (except the GM) permanent. I am very excited that we are able to support our staff in this tangible manner.

Outreach

This month we teamed up with the Marine Science Center to participate in a global social media awareness campaign titled #plasticfreejuly, providing tips and tricks about reducing plastic waste. Participants in the local contest can win cool Food Co-op reusable merchandise.

We also donated gift cards to the virtual summer reading program on educational topics such as racial justice at the PT Library. Plus, our Co-op Board Elections Committee wanted to increase participation in our annual board election, so we promised our members we would donate $1 to the Food Bank for every member who voted. This year we had almost double the amount of participation as last year and we donated $570 to the Jefferson County Food Bank.

Be well,

Kenna Eaton, GM