• April 4, 2025

Exciting New Changes at the Co-op!

If you’ve shopped with us this week, you might have noticed something different: the big sale display at the front of the store is gone! After many years of service, we’ve officially retired that setup and rolled out a new system that’s all about making it easier to spot deals, shop produce, and move through the store more comfortably.

Here’s a look at what’s changed:

Sales Are Now in the Aisles

Instead of pulling sale items to the front of the store, we’re now featuring sale items right in the aisles where they normally live. That means:

• More space to expand our produce section

• Less crowding at the store entrance

• More sale items featured throughout the store

Now you’ll find great prices exactly where you’d expect to—on the shelf next to your favorite products. No more navigating bottlenecks or checking the front for deals—we’re bringing them to you, where you already shop.

Two Flyers to Keep You in the Know

To support this new approach, we’ve launched two flyers designed to bring you more relevant and up-to-date deals:

🛒 Co-op Deals Flyer

This flyer now includes only products we actually carry, so you can shop with confidence knowing that everything listed is right here in our store. It’s still full of great prices, but now it’s tailored just for MNFC.

🧀 Fresh Flyer

This new one-page flyer comes out every Wednesday and features fresh, short-notice deals from departments like meat, cheese, deli, dairy, and produce. These are the kind of deals that are hard to plan in advance—but too good to miss!

Both flyers are available at the front of the store, near the restrooms, in the flyer racks located just outside the front door and inside the store. 

You Might Be Wondering…

“Why did you remove the front sale display?”
We needed more room for produce, and the front display had become a traffic jam. Now, we’re able to spread out the deals and make shopping easier and more pleasant throughout the store.

“Are Member Deals and coupons still available?”
Absolutely! Member Deals are still going strong, and Addison Independent coupons are still in use—they just now follow the same Wednesday–Tuesday sales cycle as everything else.

“Where can I find the flyers now?”
Flyers are still easy to find—look for them near the new signage at the front of the store, near the restrooms, on the sandwich board outside, and online.

We’re Excited About What’s Next

This new system helps us offer more deals in more places, make better use of our space, and bring even more attention to the producers, products, and savings that matter most to you.

Love the new look? Not quite sure how you feel yet? Let us know! You can leave your thoughts in the customer comment box located at the customer service desk. 

• April 4, 2025
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• January 26, 2025

Egg Prices Are Up—Here’s What You Need to Know

If you’ve shopped for eggs recently, you’ve probably notice an increase in price. 

The rising cost of eggs is a reflection of a national shortage caused by the devastating impacts of avian influenza, which has drastically reduced egg supplies across the country. While Vermont’s commercial flocks have largely been spared, the increased demand for local eggs has placed unprecedented pressure on producers, driving up their costs. As a result, the price we pay for eggs has risen substantially over a very short period. We want to assure you that we are doing everything we can to navigate this challenging situation with fairness, transparency, and care for both our customers and our local producers.

At the Co-op, we have chosen to subsidize the cost of eggs as much as possible to keep them accessible to everyone in our community. This means that while our prices may still reflect the broader market pressures, we are intentionally absorbing some of the costs to help protect our customers during this time. Our goal is to strike a careful balance between maintaining accessibility and ensuring the sustainability of the local producers we all rely on.

We have a long-standing commitment to paying all of our producers fairly. As egg prices rise, we continue to pay local farmers more—not just to match the market but to ensure they have the financial stability to weather future challenges. Just as we supported farmers after this summer’s floods by purchasing whatever they could sell at whatever the asking price, we are now standing by our egg producers to ensure they can survive and continue to provide us with the food we depend on.

We want to be clear: any price increases you see are not arbitrary. They are the result of market realities beyond our control. Our commitment to you remains the same: to provide high-quality food at a fair and thoughtful price while prioritizing the long-term well-being of our community, our customers, and our farmers.

Being a member of this Co-op means more than just being a shopper—it means being part of a community that stands by its values, even when times are tough–especially when times are tough. We’re not just weathering this challenge – we’re making conscious choices to build a stronger, more resilient food system for the future. We deeply appreciate your understanding, trust, and support as we work through this together.

• January 26, 2025
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• December 31, 2024

The Dark Side of the Cashew Industry

Cashews are a pantry favorite, but their production often comes at a steep human and environmental cost. From unethical labor practices to ecological damage, the hidden realities of this popular nut deserve a closer look.

This is a repost from Equal Exchange. You can read the original article here. 

 

Cashews: Healthy nuts, toxic industry 

The popularity of cashew nuts has been steadily growing in recent years. They are valued for their rich, creamy flavor, high nutritious value, and the ease with which they can be substituted into plant-based diets. As the niche of health-conscious consumers widens across the globe, sales of cashews are also rising exponentially. According to Zion Reports, the cashew market is projected to expand about 4.5% annually from 2023 through 2030. Global sales generated almost $8 billion last year and are expected to reach $11 billion by 2030. 

Although the health and nutrition benefits of cashew consumption are increasingly well-known and widely touted, sadly, the darker side of the cashew industry is shrouded in a lack of transparency. The global cashew nut trade is marred by unsafe and exploitative working conditions, poverty-line wages, and ecologically unsustainable supply chains. After Human Rights Watch released its 2011 report entitled, The Rehab Archipelago, an article in Time Magazine covering the industry, began with the question: “First there were blood diamonds from the Congo. Then, blood rubies from Burma. Could blood cashews from Vietnam be next?”

 

The human cost of cashew processing 

According to ImpACT International, in a November 2019 article, Cashews are Delicious, but Come with a Human Cost: 

 

“The cashew industry relies on a brutal manufacturing process to bring its products to market, including the forced labour and the exploitation of children. As documented by the International Labour Organisation and Human Rights Watch, the soaring demand for the nut has driven producers to hire cheap labour, including many children, to keep costs down. And in Vietnam, Human Rights Watch documented forced labour among vulnerable members of society, including inmates in prison on drug charges—for whom the grueling work, for little or no pay, is called ‘rehabilitation.’ If they refuse to work or do not meet their daily quota, they are punished with torture or solitary confinement.”

 

The vast majority of the global production of cashew nuts is processed in India and Vietnam. Despite reports of the horrendous working conditions that exist in many of these factories, there has been very little auditing or certification of the plants, and virtually no accountability throughout the industry. 

The cashew plant comes from the same family as poison ivy and poison sumac. The shells contain anacardic acid, a naturally occurring chemical compound that is an extremely toxic chemical. When handled directly, it can cause severe irritation and burns to the skin. For this reason, cashews, unlike other nuts, cannot be sold in their shell. They are removed by hand, and the mostly female workers are rarely supplied with protective gloves, as it slows down work and can increase expenses. The smoke from processing is also toxic and can harm workers’ lungs. 

 

Unsustainable and inequitable supply chains 

Half of the world’s cashew nut production is cultivated in West Africa, in some of the world’s poorest and least developed countries. Due to a lack of resources and an unwillingness on the part of investors to build processing plants, only five percent of the cashew nuts grown in West Africa are processed in-country. Without access to manufacturing plants, local communities lose the bulk of the value—higher prices, employment, and economic development opportunities—generated by the global cashew industry. They also lose out on the value-added resulting from the sale of cashew processing by-products, such as cashew apples, cashew nutshell liquid, cardanol, and cashew gum.

Eighty percent of all cashew nuts are processed in just two countries, India and Vietnam. Because India has such a large domestic market for cashews, most of the imported nuts remain in-country. However, as much as 60-70% of the cashews sent to Vietnam for processing are then exported back to Europe and the United States for consumption. Not only are these supply chains opaque, but the carbon footprint and ecological impact of this extra shipping is extremely high. 

 

 

What can we do?

Ethically-minded citizen-consumers concerned about child labor, worker rights, and environmentally sustainable practices in the food industry, should make a point to learn more about what lies behind these tasty and nutritious nuts. With so much to criticize about the conventional cashew industry, choosing to buy cashew products from Equal Exchange and other Alternative Trade Organizations, is one important action we can all take. These supply chains are transparent and more ecologically sustainable.

Most importantly, the farmers who grow cashews within these systems, such as Gebana Burkina Faso, receive critical benefits, such as technical training and support, higher prices, additional premiums and profit-sharing. With access to their own processing plants, the farmers are able to capture the added value, and their communities benefit from the employment and economic development that the manufacturing generates.

There doesn’t need to be a trade-off between consumer health and worker safety. Organizations do exist that make it part of their mission to build transparent and sustainable supply chains. As citizen-consumers, we can take steps to learn what’s behind the food we purchase and then act accordingly. 

The choice is ours to make.

• December 31, 2024
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