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526 Gaffney Road
Fairbanks, AK 99701
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GM’s Response to Ms Magazine Debate

March 22, 2014 By mary.christensen 8 Comments

At the heart of every cooperative is the desire to build common ground for member-owners and customers regardless of their backgrounds and beliefs. Co-op Market Grocery and Deli is no different. We welcome everyone.

It is also important to understand that as operators of a successful business we work to choose natural and organic products we think our customers will want to buy. We welcome comments and suggestions. Anyone can fill out a comment card at the customer service counter and we will consider these suggestions in our decision making. At the end of the day our board of directors has delegated operation to a management team focused on making good buying decisions to serve the needs of our member-owners. Sometimes people ask us to stop carrying products that other people want to buy. This makes decision making a little harder.

When faced with such dilemmas I believe that it is important to consider what is most important to our co-op and why did we set out to open this store to begin with? Probably our most important goal throughout the development years was improving the local economy. Another goal is providing our member-owners with the healthiest and freshest food possible. We also want to be both economically and financially sustainable. Finally, we care about our community.

We are proud of the work we are doing to create local economy, especially in our meat department. This week we are increasing the amount of local beef we buy and we’ve added local pork. Reindeer, goat and buffalo are regular offerings. All of our fish and seafood is wild caught in Alaskan waters. Our chicken is from our neighbors in Washington (since there are no poultry processing facilities in Alaska). Soon we’ll see more and more local produce. Last year local produce accounted for 35% of produce sales. This year we hope to increase that to 51%. Local eggs have just hit the shelves and we hope to offer more. (Call our fresh foods buyer, Steven Vandermaas, at 457-1023 Ext 104 if you have local eggs to sell.). We offer coffee from two local vendors – Diving Duck of Fairbanks and Kaladi Brothers of Anchorage. You’ll also find local ice cream and milk and many other local products in our aisles.

Possibly our most delicious local food comes right out of our own kitchen! Our talented chefs create amazing soups, salads and sandwiches using local meats and seafood and fresh organic vegetables. Many vegetarian and vegan options are available as well. Currently we are looking for a double soup warmer so that meat eaters and vegetarians can both find the soups they crave.

Perhaps our most important goal is sustainability. How do we provide our community with a financially sustainable community grocery store that thrives for years to come? This was the question I was working on when the debate over Ms magazine came to my attention. We have recently joined National Cooperative Grocer’s Association and a Development Advisor spent a week here helping me to assess how we need to improve operations. We’re excited about the opportunity NCGA offers us. Coming in June you will see Co+op Deals throughout the store. You might even get a coupon book or sales flyer in the mail. NCGA also helps us to offer education, recipes and information about natural foods.

Concern for community is another goal near and dear to us. Last fall we started the popular Lend a Hand program that gives you the opportunity to round up at the register and help your favorite charity. Our member-owners and customers donated over $1500 to both Stone Soup Cafe (Breadline) and the Foodbank.

As cooperators we do not represent one political agenda. When we offer reading material that we think people will want to buy that does not mean that the opinions represented in the magazine are ours. We strive to offer a balance of reading material that interests our customers. You will find food, farming and exercise magazines, literary magazines, and both the New Republic and Ms. While we welcome suggestions, our professional staff makes the buying decisions for our store. We will not be voting on what magazines (or other products) to carry but ultimately, for member-owners, the best way to vote is by buying the products you like.

Again, what matters most at our co-op? Local economy, healthy food, sustainability and community.

Thanks,
Mary Christensen
General Manager

Filed Under: Issues Tagged With: education, news stories, politics, principles

Does Food Rule?

May 6, 2010 By mary.christensen Leave a Comment

A review of the new “quick read” by Michael Pollan, “Food Rules”

By Rich Seifert,  Co-op Market Board Member

I read Michael Pollan’s first book, the Botany of Desire many years ago, and now his stature as America’s food folk hero is perhaps at its peak.  He has followed an interesting road, and one we should all travel along these days.

His latest, “Food Rules”, is a very quick but effective read written in the pattern of “Life’s Little Lesson Books”. This format makes the book, dense as it is with inspirations, a very quick read.  It is perfectly designed for any aspiring “food missionaries” out there who want to promote healthy eating and move to a healthier diet.

And for those of us who want to see Alaska, and for me, Fairbanks, become healthier through healthy eating, the virtues of this little tome are as timely as they are helpful.

The plan for the book was to ask people, through a New York Times blog called “Well” (as in wellness) for their best advice in an aphorism on eating well and healthy.  Spinning onward from his previous book, In Defense of Food, he condenses the entire message of the book into these seven words:  Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Pretty comprehensive actually.  But in this little book he refines the message further into paragraphs of food insight, which I can best relate by showing examples of my own “favorites’” list.  Take these examples as a few seductive tastes to incite you to read the book:

–       Avoid food products that contain ingredients no ordinary person would keep in their pantry. For instance ethoxylated diglycerides, cellulose, xanthan gum.  Doesn’t seem too hard, does it?

–       Avoid food products that make health claims (!) Well this seems counter-intuitive at first, but upon reflection, makes great sense.  If a product has to tell you how healthy it is, then it is making up for some deficiency it obviously has.  Carrots don’t have to convince you that they are good for you.

–       Avoid foods you see advertised on television. Whoa, this is a biggie!  I have heard a friend describe commercials for pizza or Red Lobster restaurant as “food pornography”.  A fairly apt description of the visual effect of the commercials. It shouldn’t be necessary to say that the vegetable lobby doesn’t need to do TV ads.

–       Eat only foods that will eventually rot. Again, anything that will last indefinitely has so many preservatives and probably toxic ingredients that keep it from “spoiling” that it cannot be very good for living creatures such as we humans.   An exception is honey, which has an indefinite shelf life, but it is unique in that respect.  All food needs to be digestible, and if it can’t be digestible outside your body by other creatures who need it just as much, it is unlikely to be healthfully digested inside your body.

Since I am writing this for both the general public and particularly for the future patrons of our Fairbanks Community Cooperative Market (Co-op Market), I want to encourage the best food products for a healthy life, and make them available in Alaska, and preferably grown here too.

Michael Pollan’s  “Food Facts” is motivated by much the same things. He started out with a keen interest in finding out how to eat well to maintain his family’s health. He discloses two major facts in the preface that he has gleaned from this search, and he concisely summarizes what he has learned and written about since.

First, populations that eat mostly the “ Western” diet, consisting of lots of processed foods and meat, added fats and sugars, lots of refined grains, lots of everything except vegetables, invariably suffer from high rates of the so-called Western diseases:  obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.  Virtually all of the obesity and the diabetes, 80% of the cardiovascular disease, and more than a third of all cancers can be linked to this diet.

And second, in contrast, populations eating a remarkably wide range of traditional diets generally don’t suffer from these chronic diseases.  It appears that we human omnivores are well adapted to a broad range of mixed traditional diets, except for one: the WESTERN DIET, recently fallen upon us.

There is a third factor though which is good news, and which I hope that our new co-op will help to promote:  People who get off the Western diet see dramatic improvements in their health.  Pollan cites research that suggests that the effects of the Western diet can be rolled back by getting off it, and relatively quickly.

It is our intent with the Co-op Market to help in every way to achieve this option and promote community health and wellness. We even have a committee devoted to those very subjects. (The next meeting of the Health and Wellness committee is Tuesday, June 1 at 5:30 pm at the Volunteer Center.)

Stay with us, be patient, and start developing these suggested eating habits now. As soon as we can, the Co-op Market will do all it can to keep you eating healthy and maintaining local food availability.  Join the Co-op Market, become a full voting member, and eat well.  Live long and prosper…  and come and visit us online at www.FairbanksCoop.org/

Filed Under: Food, Issues, Member education Tagged With: books, education, food systems, health

Health and Wellness Committee Movie Screening

April 15, 2010 By mary.christensen Leave a Comment

The Health and Wellness Committee will be screening the movie, “Diet for a New America” and planning a healthy food related showing of this film as an event on Wednesday, April 28 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm at the Noel Wein Library.

Bring your ideas for other committee activities.

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: committees, education, health, movies

Master gardener class

January 7, 2010 By coopmarket Leave a Comment

Master gardener classes are being offered by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service. Master Gardeners are trained volunteers who aid University of Alaska Cooperative Extension Service staff by helping people in the community better understand horticulture and their environment.

The class consists of 40 hours of instruction on different areas of horticulture and pest management. The payback of volunteer time is set at 40 hours, which equals the hours of training received.

Michele Hébert, Tanana District agriculture and horticulture agent, will lead two sessions of classes at the University Park Building. The first session will meet Feb. 10-March 7, Tuesdays from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. and 6-9 p.m. and Saturdays from noon-3 p.m. The second session will meet April 27-May 8, weekdays from 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

Topics include basic horticulture, plant classification, soils, vegetables, fruit and berry crops, composting, lawn establishment and maintenance, plant diseases and pests, home landscaping, and more.

Classes are limited to twenty students. Registration is requested by Jan. 31. The class fee is $75 if participants agree to donate forty hours of gardening-related volunteer service in the community. The fee is $250 without the volunteer commitment. Volunteer hours must be completed within two years of completing the class.

For more information or to register, call the Tanana District Extension office at 907-474-1530 or stop by the Cooperative Extension office in the University Park Building at 1000 University Avenue.

Filed Under: Member education Tagged With: education, gardening

Talk by David Fazzino and Phil Loring on Alaska food systems

December 9, 2009 By coopmarket Leave a Comment

This event, part of the Anthropology Colloquium Series, may be of interest to FCCM members:

Anchorage? Uh, Washington? Anyone? We Have a Problem! Disaster Politics and Cumulative Effects in Alaskan Food Systems
David Fazzino and Phil Loring, Department of Anthropology, UAF
Friday, Dec. 11
3:30 p.m. – Schaible Auditorium, Bunnell Building, UAF
****
Information: pplattet@alaska.edu

Filed Under: Events, Food, Issues, Member education Tagged With: education, food systems, local food production, rural Alaska, sustainability

Essay on Sustainable Agriculture

October 30, 2009 By mary.christensen 3 Comments

for SARE New Voices Contest
December, 2007

I didn’t grow up on a farm.  When I was young, I never learned how to fix a screen door let alone a tractor.   I didn’t know which end of a seed to plant in the ground.  If you had told me twenty years ago that I would own the farthest north certified organic farm in the country, I would have told you that you must be crazy.

I come from a long line of Jewish tailors who never ventured too far from the city.  My connections with agriculture were like many kids growing up in suburban America – with the pictures of fields of grain on cereal boxes or occasional trips to the “country” to visit an apple orchard or to see goats and rabbits at a petting zoo.   But my parents always had a garden we always liked to eat and we liked to eat good fresh food.  This is how I came to agriculture – through gardening.  Through getting back to that connection with where your food comes from and acting on it.  I wanted that feeling of looking down a row of crops and feeling that connection with the plants and soil and the thousands of years of farmers and gardeners before me – food growers.

It took me a while to get into farming.  It didn’t come until my mid-thirties, when after many years of having a garden, I quit my day job and followed the dream of many back-to-the land folks before me. I had no idea of what I was doing, but I expanded the garden, bought a rototiller and Elliot Coleman’s “The New Organic Grower”, and started to make a go of it as a market farmer.  It certainly hasn’t been easy, especially since we live in interior Alaska square in the middle of agricultural zone 1.  There is very little historical farmland where we live.  Our farm was literally carved out of the Alaska wilderness with a chainsaw and bulldozer – hardly a soft footprint on the land.  But we justified the destruction of 10 acres of our forest with the belief that having a farm and feeding people was, in the end, a good thing for the community.  After all, wasn’t that what all farmers had originally done?  Also by farming organically, we hoped we were insuring a healthy environment for any wildlife that used the farm, for ourselves and our workers, and for those who ate our produce.  The demand for quality local produce is high, and despite our growing pains as a farm, we are still able to stay afloat with a lot of hard work, and all of our savings.  After 10 years, we have a healthy farm and an increasingly successful business.

Since I come from this new movement of market gardeners turned farmer, my models for success and role models to seek advice from have been organic farmers many with similar experience as I but with more years under their belt.  We have learned the appropriate models for ecologically sound agriculture and the goals for our farm are the same as the goals for many farms like ours across the country – to minimize off-farm inputs while maintaining high soil fertility, to produce high quality and healthy produce, and maintain a profitable business.

We think about sustainability a lot in Alaska, however most of the discussion focuses on natural fish and wildlife populations and their relation to subsistence versus commercial harvest.  There is little talk about sustainable agriculture, but there should be.  Although one’s vision of Alaska might be one of a hunter alone on the tundra, we get most of our food like the rest of America – from large supermarkets run by huge corporations.  If the average piece of food travels approximately 1500 miles from producer to consumer in the rest of the country, it travels much farther to us in Alaska.  For this reason, and many others, we should be concerned about sustainability on a local and community scale.

If our state seems extreme, it is but a microcosm of the country as a whole.  We need to look within our own communities for inputs to agriculture and other resources.  Our model for farming does follow a community approach.  Eating locally is not just a buzzword for marketing – although that is very effective – but it also should be the way we do business.  “Thinking globally and acting locally” is not only the right thing to do for the earth, it is the only economical thing to do.  With the cost of fuel rising ever higher coupled with high shipping costs, we have to think very carefully what it is we import.  Looking at ways to improve the soil, create energy, and market crops must be local in order for us to make a living and feel as though we’re living our lives for the betterment of our community.

Small-scale and locally marketed agriculture should not be just a fringe or niche economy. By showing that we can make a living while growing healthy crops by ecologically sound methods we will make ourselves assets in our local economies by encouraging both new farmers and intelligent agriculture.   It will continue to cost more for food, but we cannot keep going down the path of large scale commodity agriculture transported huge distances or we will be paying a higher and higher price for the wrong reasons.

I can now fix a screen door, sometimes fix my tractor and plant seeds right side up.  If the son of a long line of Jewish tailors can carve out a niche in small scale agriculture, then I’m optimistic that this growing movement of community-centered agriculture can keep gaining momentum.  We need to invest in community agriculture – it is at the core of sustainability.

Mike Emers
Rosie Creek Farm
Ester, Alaska

Filed Under: Issues, Member education Tagged With: community, education, local food production, news stories, sustainability

Health & Wellness meeting notes

October 30, 2009 By coopmarket 1 Comment

First Health and Wellness Eduction Committee Meeting:

Thank you all who made it to this meeting in spite of the slippery roads!

Last Wednesday we held our first Health and Wellness Education Committee at our downtown volunteer center. We had a great turnout with 11 folks interested excited and enthusiastic about educating our community about getting and staying healthier.

We had a great group of folks with interests varying from natural child birth to cooking organic and vegan food to holistic health care and teas.

Many different ideas were shared including classes on healthy and economical cooking, a lecture series, finding good articles to share on our blog site, and starting a reference library for our co-op.

What we decided on as a start was to show a food and health related film. Several were suggested such as Food Inc. and Eating Alaska.

We will be meeting again next Wednesday at 6 pm (that’s Nov. 4) in our volunteer center with the goal of choosing a movie, a venue, and a date. In the meantime we will be checking out what films and venues are available and thinking about what we want to do next.

Filed Under: Events, Member education Tagged With: cooking, education, health, minutes, movies

Health and Wellness Education Committee

October 25, 2009 By coopmarket Leave a Comment

Please come to the Health and Wellness Education Committee’s first meeting:

6 PM Wednesday October 28th

FCCM Volunteer Center
542-4th Suite 100B
(This is beneath the Veterans Affairs office. Go in the door to the right of the Vet office and down the stairs. The door will be unlocked until 6:45)

Join us for our first Health and Wellness Education Committee meeting. Even before our store is open we can begin to serve our members by providing health education and information to the community. We need your help in planning what sort of activities and things we can do to encourage and support a healthy and well Fairbanks.

For more information, please contact Sharon Alden.

Filed Under: Events, Member education Tagged With: committees, education, health, meetings, planning

Sustainable Community Movements

October 19, 2009 By coopmarket Leave a Comment

Richard Seifert, an energy and housing specialist with the Cooperative Extension Service, will be giving a talk on sustainable community movements (“Connecting University Research to Communities”), Wednesday, Oct. 21, from 6:30 to 8 pm at Noel Wien Library (1215 Cowles in Fairbanks). This talk is part of the Community Energy Forum, sponsored by the Alaska Center for Energy & Power, the Renewable Energy Alaska Project, and the Extension Service.

Seifert will discuss community gardens, home weatherization, renewable energy, education, and local organizations that are working to build sustainable communities.

Seifert is a member of the Alaska Energy Network. See also his website, Sustain Alaska.

Filed Under: Events, Member education Tagged With: community, education, planning, sustainability

Meeting minutes from June 4, 2009

June 13, 2009 By coopmarket 1 Comment

FCCM Minutes for June 4, 2009 (as approved June 11)
Present were Mary Christensen, Rob Leach, Lela Ryterski, and Ian Olson.
The minutes from the previous meeting were read and accepted.

COMMUNITY/OUTREACH: Mary reported on the June 2nd meeting. Three new members came to that meeting: Shawn Lott, Sue Sprinkle, and Jackie Sunnyboy. Also present were Tom Bradley, Lela Ryterski, Mary Christensen, and Sharon Alden.

Mary informed the group that they were responsible for the initial membership fundraising since the fact that we could raise, among ourselves, a substantial portion of funds needed to begin operations would legitimize the co-op as viable and make it easy to receive other monies from matching grants and bank loans. Mary suggested we shoot for a goal of $100,000 by November. Five hundred people investing the proposed one-time $200 membership would satisfy that goal. The next newsletter will focus on the money issue.

Mary and Sharon went to Risse’s Greenhouse on Saturday and got a few names. Tom and Lela went to Clucking Blossom and got several more names. Mary suggested that if we all got on the co-op’s Facebook and each invite 6 people to join, we could be reaching thousands of people with one notice.

Twitter is set up. Sharon did the Pay Pal and Dru is working on the website to incorporate all aspects. Partners in Business is in progress. Other member equity: turkey dinner, calendar, fancy dinner at a producer, cookbook, coupon book, buttons, t-shirts, bumper stickers, tiles honoring big donors. Sue is working up a membership poster.

Next Communications Committee meeting will be next Tuesday, June 9th, at Mary’s at 6:30 p.m. Interested persons can go to themagiccarpet@gci.net and ask for directions to Mary’s house.

LOCAL PRODUCERS: Lela is contacting potential suppliers. Ian mentioned reindeer processing from a mobile unit at the university. He’ll look into that.

STORE DESIGN: Rob is the new chair.

BUSINESS PLAN: Robert Sullivan has material and is getting geared up, reported Rob.

FINANCE: Hans is out of town. Mary contacted two insurance companies and gave Rob the findings.

PRODUCT SELECTION: Lela spoke to Shawn Lott about being on the committee.

TREASURER’S REPORT: Lela reported that Sharon put a member’s donation in the bank and paid the phone bill.

OLD BUSINESS: The Bylaws got sent to the lawyer. Lela sent Deirdre the revised copy to replace the one on the blog. Rob is sure it will need another revision.

NEW BUSINESS:

Pot luck dinner for volunteers to inventory the Foodland building and choose which committees they would like to work with. Bring flashlight and work clothes and a digital camera. Event pushed back 3 weeks to allow enough time to get the word out.

Delta Farm Bus Tour in mid-July.

Communications Committee to advertise for other health education events in our newsletter.

Rob is scheduled to speak at the Farmers’ Market Board Meeting on June 17th at 5:30pm. Other board members are welcome to join.

COMMITTEE DESCRIPTIONS: Rob outlined how the committees work to provide input for the Business Plan: Puts all aspects together—start up costs, growth, working capital, employee training, operating funds, inventory, etc.

Product Selection: Needs to develop a statement with a clear criteria for products. Define local produce—meats, fish, Alaska, etc. List products we’re not going to carry, i.e.: tobacco. Set goals for increasing amount of local produce. Store services: coffee bar, juice bar, deli, etc. and future projections. Special events: plant starts, etc. Look at feasibility study and take recommendations.

Vendor Selection: Follows criteria for product selection.

Operations: Project how many managers we’ll need; how many people per day; rent, utilities, etc. Talk to grocery clerk union. Volunteers for community enrichment activities…

Health and Wellness Education: Speakers discussing co-ops at the Noel Wein Library or Universalist Church.

NEXT MEETING: Thursday, June 11th at 6:00p.m. At the Foodland building.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:00 p.m.

Filed Under: Business, Events Tagged With: bylaws, committees, education, financing, health, meetings, minutes, operations, planning, product selection, vendor selection

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