Co-op Market

Grocery & Deli

Monday - Saturday: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Sunday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
526 Gaffney Road
Fairbanks, AK 99701
907.457.1023

2020 Lend a Hand Recipients Selected

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From a field of 27 applicants, our Owners have chosen 11 local nonprofits to support through our 2020 Lend a Hand register round-up program. A total of 251 (or approximately 6%) of our Owners voted in our survey.

The 2020 Lend a Hand Calendar includes:

  • January – Big Brothers Big Sisters of Alaska
  • February – Green Star of Interior Alaska
  • March – Fairbanks Animal Shelter Fund
  • April – NAMI Fairbanks
  • May – Fairbanks Senior Center Meals on Wheels
  • June – Friends of Creamer’s Field
  • July – Calypso Farm & Ecology Center
  • August – Fairbanks Community Food Bank
  • September – Literacy Council of Alaska
  • October – The Folk School
  • November – Breadline/Stone Soup Cafe/Stone’s Throw
  • December is reserved for the Interior Alaska Center for Non-Violent Living. Owners voted last year to continue this tradition.

The 2020 list includes two organizations that haven’t received Lend a Hand funding in the past: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Alaska and NAMI Fairbanks.

We asked our Owners to weigh in on whether or not organizations should be limited to two consecutive years of funding before taking a year off. The vote was 55% to 44% in favor of no limit, so we will not implement that change.

Thank you to all of the 27 organizations that applied! Your work represents so much that is good and positive in our community. And thank you to Owners who took time to vote. Your passion and generosity are proof that Fairbanks truly is the Golden Heart City.

Click here to see past Lend a Hand recipients and donation totals. Links to this year’s applications are available here.

Owners: Please Vote for 2020 Lend a Hand Recipients

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It’s time for our Owners to select the local nonprofits that will receive our Lend a Hand register round-ups in 2020.

This year we have 27 applicants, and 13 of them have never received Lend a Hand donations. We invite our Owners to select 11 of these nonprofits for our monthly round-ups. (December is reserved for a giving tree and round-ups for the Interior Alaska Center for Non-Violent Living.)

Please review the applications linked below before completing the Lend a Hand selection survey. Asterisks indicate organizations that have not previously benefited from Lend a Hand. To view prior years’ totals, click here.

To give you time to review the applications, our survey will remain open through December 24th.

2019 Annual Meeting Report

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Approximately 60 Co-op Market Owners came together for good food, fun, information and inspiration at our 11th Annual Owners’ Meeting on October 19th. Lots of them won prizes, too, including turkeys, $25 gift certificates, chocolate, a basket of Fair Trade goods, and more.

The meeting agenda and financial statements are available here.

Agriculture Report
We learned about the current state of farming in Alaska from Scott Mugrage, president of the Alaska Farm Bureau. He said the number of farms in Alaska is up by 36% at a time when farming is down by 3% nationwide, and Alaska farm revenue is up by 100%. We also lead the nation in female- and veteran-owned farms. Mugrage said that although we currently grow less than 5% of the food Alaska needs, we have millions of acres of potentially farmable land, and some of the best of it is in nearby Nenana. He sees the tremendous growth potential in turning Alaska-grown ingredients into value-added products, such as heat-and-eat meals.

2019 Election results
More Owners voted in our annual Board of Directors election than ever before. We received ballots from 488 of our 3070 eligible voters. That’s 16.5%, many more than the 307 needed to achieve the 10% required by our Bylaws.

• Art Gelvin was elected to Seat B
• Brian Kassof’s appointment to Seat D was confirmed
• Anduin McElroy’s appointment to Seat I was confirmed
• The amendment to our Bylaws was passed, decreasing the number of board seats to seven from nine and the board quorum to four from five.

Thank you to all Owners who voted in our election and to those who attended our Annual Meeting. You are the heart of our co-op!

Owners, Vote to Keep Your Co-op Strong

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Every fall, Co-op Market Owners have the opportunity to help shape the future of the co-op by voting in the Board of Directors election.

Co-op Market Grocery & Deli is a member-owned corporation. By electing members of the Board of Directors, you are participating in the democratic operation and oversight of your cooperative.

The Board of Directors we choose acts on behalf of all Owners. The board oversees our co-op’s financial condition, connects to our Owners, shapes our co-op’s vision and works closely with our General Manager to set long-term strategies. Directors must be current Owners in good standing.

There are three parts to the 2019 election.

  1. Election of a board member.
  2. Confirmation of two appointed board members to serve the remainder of their terms.
  3. Approval of an amendment to the Bylaws. 

There are two ways to vote: electronic ballot or paper ballot.

  • Electronic ballot: Instructions will be emailed after noon today to all Owners with a valid email address on record. Look for an email entitled, “Important: Login Info for Co-op Market Board Election.” It will be sent from “Kristin Summerlin, Co-op Market Election Coordinator,” with the email address noreply@directvote.net. Be sure to check your spam folder, too. If you didn’t receive the email and would like to vote online, please contact Kristin.
  • Paper ballot: If you’d rather vote by paper ballot, they’re available in the store and are being mailed via USPS to Owners with no email address on file. If you receive a paper ballot in the mail, you can bring it to the store the next time you shop, or drop it in the mail.

Click here to view the 2019 ballot, including candidate bios and an explanation of the proposed Bylaws amendment.

IN GOOD STANDING

What does it mean for an Owner to be considered “in good standing”?

Our Bylaws state that Owners must be in good standing to receive Owner benefits. This is especially important for voting in our annual Board of Directors election.

To be considered “in good standing,” Owners must either have paid their full $200 investment or have made a payment of at least $5 toward their investment within the last quarter.

We have made a special effort to help our Owners get up to date in the months leading up to this election. We sent reminder postcards to those who had fallen behind on payments. Cashiers have also been reminding Owners about the requirement. We appreciate those who have responded positively.

Many of the postcards we sent were returned to us as not deliverable. It is critical that we have current contact information for every Owner, so if you haven’t updated your mailing address and email recently, please do. Cashiers may also ask you to review your contact info at the register.

We compiled our voter database from records pulled on September 6th. On that date, we had a total of 4030 Owners. Of those, 3064 were eligible to vote.

For our election to be valid, at least 10% of eligible voters must participate. This means that we will need at least 306 votes.

Remember: Each Owner number gets only one vote, so if you share a number with other members of your household, please consult with them before voting.

Our election ends and results are announced at our annual meeting on Saturday, October 19th, at JP Jones Community Center at 2400 Rickert Street. Doors open at 3 p.m.

A Message to Our Owners About the Health of Our Co-op

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from the Board of Directors and General Manager:

As a community-owned cooperative, our health and wellbeing are inextricably entwined with the health and wellbeing of our community. When people in our community thrive, our cooperative grows and thrives. If our community suffers – whether because of financial and economic uncertainty or natural disaster – our cooperative naturally feels the impact, too, as people spend less money.

Because of our state’s current political and economic upheaval, we are concerned about the wellbeing of our co-op community.

Although we don’t yet know the final outcome, we do expect significant changes in funding for everything from agricultural programs to food and shelter for our most vulnerable citizens. In the meantime, we know that many of our Owners and shoppers are already experiencing economic hardship and anxiety about the future.

As for the co-op, after 2018’s tremendous 14% sales growth, we are now experiencing declining sales (down 3% from last year). Although we are still a healthy, viable business, we are concerned about what the future may hold.

We are committed to supporting our local economy, fostering food security, and making healthy, nutritious food affordable and accessible to everyone. As a cooperative, we have built a business model that includes many initiatives to support these things, including:

• Preferred purchasing from local farmers and producers. Our purchasing priorities are 1. Fairbanks and surrounding area, 2. Alaska grown and produced, and 3. organic and natural products from the distributors that serve our national cooperative.

• Lend a Hand and Shop & Share. These programs give our shoppers an easy way to share their resources with community nonprofits and people in need.

• Donating surplus food. We avoid food waste by donating out-of-date useable food to Breadline’s Stone Soup Cafe and the Fairbanks Community Food Bank. We also offer compostable food waste to local farmers and gardeners.

• Co+op Basics. More than 100 of our organic and natural items in every department are affordably priced every day. These items have purple price tags and are priced to compete with store-branded products from other stores – and they’re often of higher quality.

What else can we do?

One concrete step we can take right now is to make it easier to become a Co-op Market Owner.

Making Ownership more accessible will allow more people to enjoy money-saving benefits, including monthly Owner Deals and, five times annually, 10% off one shopping trip. And increasing Ownership is good for the co-op: The more of us there are, the stronger we are and the more positive impact we can have on our local economy.

Effective immediately, we are reducing the required initial Ownership investment from $25 to $10. Full investment remains at $200. We will ask Owners who are not paid in full to make regular quarterly payments of at least $5 toward their full investment to be considered in good standing. Owners must remain in good standing to continue to receive discounts and vote in our board election.

We will be exploring other options in the future, and we welcome your suggestions. Please feel free to attend one of our regular monthly board meetings at 6 p.m. every 2nd Monday at the Literacy Council. Or email us at board@coopmarket.org and gm@coopmarket.org.

What can you do as an Owner?

• Continue to shop at the co-op. We know there are other choices out there, and as expected, Costco has taken a bite of our sales. We know that it may be easier and, for some specific items, less expensive to shop at a big box store. But our relationship is just that: a relationship. We cannot survive without you.

• Talk to your friends, neighbors and coworkers about your co-op. Many people still don’t know that we exist, or that you don’t have to be an Owner to shop here. People are much more likely to patronize a business when it is recommended by someone they know and trust. You can help us grow simply by talking about us.

• Get involved. Whatever your political persuasion, we encourage your civic engagement. We the people are the government, whether of the state or nation or even the co-op. Our government only works for people when people take action: Learn about the issues. Communicate with your representatives. Vote. Consider running for office or for a seat on our board.

Unlike large corporations, we don’t have outside investors who can inject temporary funding to tide us over in hard times. Also unlike those corporations, we are here to stay. We are committed to doing all we can not only to ride out these turbulent times, but to be a source of stability and a place where community can come together to solve problems. After all, it took powerful, sustained effort from many people to make the dream of a cooperative grocery store become a reality. The energy is there, and we hope you’ll help us harness it.

Thank you for your continuing support as we navigate these difficult times. We treasure your loyalty and confidence, and we know that difficulty often brings opportunity. As your representatives on the co-op’s board of directors and as your general manager, we commit to deliberate and careful actions to ensure that we maintain our role as your source of healthful foods. The wellbeing of our community members and the health of our business will always guide our decisions.

In cooperation,

Board of Directors:
Art Gelvin
Brian Kassof
Anduin McElroy
Chase Nelson
Madeline Patterson O’Dell
Rich Seifert
Hilary Shook
Jodi Tansky

General Manager
Mary Christensen

5th Annual Truckload Sale: Big Savings for Everyone!

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Saturday, May 18 – 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday, May 19 – 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

UPDATE SUNDAY: Here’s the list of sale items updated to reflect out of stocks.

Stock your pantry and save up to 50% when you buy cases and bulk quantities at our 5th Annual Truckload Sale. We’ll set up under the tents in our parking lot.

You’ll find deep discounts on cases and bulk bags of your favorite products, including organic nuts and dried fruits, honey, coconut oil, snacks and protein bars, and more! The full list of sale items is available here.

We’ll also have some items not listed, as this sale gives us an opportunity to clear our shelves and freezers of some overstock.

This is our biggest sale of the year! Come early for the best selection!

Please note: We cannot stack discounts, so our Owner Appreciation Days 10% discount cannot be applied to Truckload Sale items.

Paper or Plastic? Neither.

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Co-op Market shoppers are a conscientious lot. Over the years, more and more of you have made it a habit to avoid waste by bringing your own reusable shopping bags. In fact, according to our recent Shopper Survey, 51% of you say you always bring your own bags, and 28% frequently do.

We’re proud to say we’ve never offered plastic grocery bags at the co-op, but we do go through a lot of paper bags: nearly 52,300 last year alone. Those bags, which may be used just one time, often for only a few minutes, cost the co-op more than $13,000 last year.

In some ways, paper may seem more environmentally friendly than plastic, which is made from petroleum. But paper bags come with their own (ahem) baggage.

Did you know it takes about four times as much water to make a paper bag as a plastic bag? And the fertilizers and other chemicals used in tree farming and paper manufacturing contribute to acid rain and water pollution.

Sustainability is part of our mission as a co-op. We are committed to being good stewards of planetary and fiscal resources. For this reason, we’ve decided to start charging 25¢ for paper bags starting Friday, April 5. This charge applies only to the heavy paper bags with handles, and it is the actual cost of the bags, not including freight.

Our shoppers who use SNAP will be exempt from the bag charge, as we know EBT will not pay for it.

As always, we want to offer options and alternatives.

  • We’ve just set up a shelf in the entryway with cardboard boxes, free for the taking. Use a box. Save a bag! The grocery business generates a huge amount of cardboard waste. By reusing the boxes we receive in freight, you’re helping extend the life of precious resources.
  • We always have reusable shopping totes for sale – including the green Bagitos with our raven and pea logo. Not only are those incredibly durable, but they also hold as many groceries as at least two paper bags. Best of all, they’re made from recycled plastic bottles, and Bagitos donates profit to support environmental education for school kids.
  • Alaffia Fair Trade market baskets, handmade by women in Ghana and Togo of sustainably harvested grasses, make beautiful and sturdy grocery totes.
  • Don’t forget: You can also eliminate single-use plastic bags by bringing your own clean containers for shopping in Bulk. Just ask a cashier to take the tare weight before you fill them. And you don’t have to use a plastic bag for Produce: Bring your own bag –  or don’t bag it at all. It isn’t necessary.
  • We’re exploring possible options for a free reusable bag exchange. We hope to set something up as soon as we we get the logistics worked out.

To help you with the transition away from paper bags, we’re planning to hold a BOGO sale on our reusable bags. Look for more details soon.

Can small acts save the planet?

“One bee is an annoyance, but a swarm is a game changer. Small acts in big amounts are a force to be reckoned with.”

Want to win $100 in Co-op Cash? Tell us what you think.

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Want a chance to win $100 in Co-op Cash? Just give us your opinions and 20 minutes of your time. We want to hear what we’re doing well, what needs improvement, and any other comments and suggestions you may have.

We’ll ask about your shopping patterns and your satisfaction with the co-op. There’s also a section specifically for Owners and a series of demographic questions that are entirely voluntary. Many questions have space for your comments, too.

Our Shopper Survey ends March 1st and is open to anyone who shops at Co-op Market. Access the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XVJGLWV

(If the survey link does not work when you click it, please try copying it and pasting it into your browser. If that doesn’t work, please contact Kristin Summerlin, Marketing & Owner Services Manager, at marketing@coopmarket.org).

2019: A Quick Review

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We’ve just ended 2018 on a tremendous high note, and we wanted to share the good news.

  • We experienced sales growth of 13.6%, bringing in $4.32 million in 2018. Our projection for the year had been just 6%. Thanks to our community, we’ve grown by leaps and bounds when the grocery business in general is contracting.
  • We now have more than 3900 Owners who’ve invested in the store, more than double the number we had when we opened in March 2013. Co-op Owners are friends and neighbors in the community who believe in our mission and want to support the cooperative business model.
  • Our Lend a Hand register round-up donations to local nonprofits grew by 38% last year to $31,027.81. Our shoppers and Owners have contributed more than $89,000 to community organizations since the program’s start in October 2013. (Almost all of these donations are less than a dollar each, so that’s 8.9 million pennies!)
  • We now serve more than 325 customers every day – and many of them live and work downtown.

We also had a fabulous holiday season.

We won three categories of a Thanksgiving challenge sponsored by National Cooperative Grocers. (NCG is our cooperative of 146 retail food co-ops with more than 200 stores in 37 states and more than $2 billion in sales.)

We placed:

  • 1st in highest percentage sales growth the day before Thanksgiving (30.9%)
  • 1st among stores our size in the number of turkeys sold in November (740)
  • 2nd in the highest growth of bone-in turkey breasts sold in November (+40)

Happy New Year, and thank you!

Owners: Vote for Our 2019 Lend a Hand Recipients

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It’s time for our Owners to select our nonprofit recipients of next year’s Lend a Hand register round-ups.

For 2019, we have 36 applicants, and 18 of them have never received Lend a Hand donations. We invite our Owners to select 11 of these nonprofits for our monthly round-ups. (December is reserved for collecting necessities for the shelter residents at the Interior Alaska Center for Non-Violent Living.)

Please review the applications linked below before completing the Lend a Hand selection survey. You can also review our charitable donation policy. Asterisks indicate organizations that have not previously benefited from Lend a Hand. To view prior years’ totals, click here.

To give you time to review the applications, our survey will remain open through December 24th.

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Sunday: 10am - 6pm

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Location

526 Gaffney Road
Fairbanks, AK 99701

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