Our Co-op Connection Business of the Month for December is Ben Franklin! Did you know that Co-op member-owners get 10% off their purchases at Ben Franklin when they shop on Saturdays? Whether you’re looking for gifts, stocking stuffers, or doing some holiday crafting, be sure to check them out!
It’s tough to imagine Middlebury’s Main Street without this throwback five-and-dime store. They offer a great selection of crafting supplies including colorful yarns, thread, fabrics, art supplies, scrapbooking materials, and more.
They also have a large toy department and lots of great gift items – including many locally made products.
They offer a very affordable custom framing service and have lots of interesting posters and artwork to adorn your walls. They also have a nice selection of inexpensive kitchen and household goods, so when you’re making your way through your holiday shopping list be sure to give Ben Franklin a try! Oh, and don’t forget to show them your Co-op card!
We’re shining our Co-op Spotlight this week on one of the most awarded specialty food companies in North America- Trois Petits Cochons! Les Trois Petits Cochons has produced award-winning, all natural pâté and charcuterie since 1975 by crafting small, handmade batches using only the finest high-quality ingredients. Their full product line is 20% off for member-owners this week – just in time for creating beautiful, crowd-pleasing holiday platters! Read on to learn more about this company that has been producing high-quality, hand-crafted products for over 40 years!
Heritage:
Les Trois Petits Cochons first opened its doors as a small charcuterie in New York City’s Greenwich Village in 1975. It has since grown to become the leader in the pâté and charcuterie industry, offering a complete line of artisanal pâtés, mousses, terrines, sausages, saucissons, smoked meats and other French specialties. Their products have garnered a long list of SOFI awards, earning great respect in the culinary world.
Mission:
Les Trois Petits Cochons is committed to continuing the tradition of making delicious, authentic and quality pâté and charcuterie for its customers. By combining time-honored recipes, choice ingredients, innovative cooking methods and strict quality control they are able to create consistent, handcrafted products. All of this, together with dedicated customer service and a passion for good food, have allowed them to stay true to their small charcuterie roots.
Environmental Commitment:
Les Trois Petits Cochons believes in taking care of the earth that gives us so much. All Les Trois Petits Cochons paper packaging is certified by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. This means that all paper is harvested legally and sustainably and that the chain of custody — from the forest to the grocery store — has been verified. In addition, Les Trois Petits Cochons uses all-natural ingredients and hand-crafts its products in small batches.
Be sure to check out the fabulous collection of recipes on their web page!
Our Co-op Spotlight is shining brightly on Badger this week. This small, family-owned, family-run, and family-friendly company nestled in the woods of Gilsum, New Hampshire is beyond worthy of the spotlight. They help define what it means to be a socially responsible, environmentally responsible, people-first kind of business. They are featured in our Member Deals program this week, so all of their fabulous body care products are 20% for member-owners! Read on to learn about the ideals, principles, and practices that make their company worthy of such high praise!
Badger was born in 1995 when founder Bill Whyte was working as a carpenter in the cold New Hampshire winters and created an amazing balm that helped soothe and heal his cracked hands. The company has since grown to over 100 products and 60 employees but “Badger Bill” still runs the show as CEO, along with his wife Katie (COO), and their two daughters Emily (VP Sales & Marketing), and Rebecca (VP of Innovation and Sustainability).
Badger Family
Quality Ingredients and Standards
Badger selects ingredients with great care, using only those that fit their rigorous natural standards for healthy agriculture, minimal processing, sustainable supply chain, and health-giving properties. Every ingredient they use is grown and processed with the highest degree of respect for protecting the environment, the workers and the natural properties of the plants. Nearly all of Badger’s products are made from 100% USDA Certified Organic food grade ingredients and they utilize as many fair trade certified ingredients as possible. You can view their impressive growing and processing standards on their web page.
B Corp Status
In 2011, Badger became a certified B Corp. In 2015 they were recognized on the B Corps Best for the Environment list. The list recognizes 116 businesses that earned an environmental score in the top 10% of more than 1,200 Certified B Corporations from over 120 industries on the B Impact Assessment, a rigorous and comprehensive assessment of a company’s impact on its workers, community, and the environment.
Badger facility & gardens
Employee Care
Badger also recently won the Connect 2016 Philosophy Award for their accommodating employee benefits and exemplary work environment. They aim to be supportive of the new parents in their extended work family while considering the well-being of all employees and productivity in the workplace. With this in mind, their Babies At Work program brings together a policy that is best for baby, parent, and business. Most short-term disability benefits regarding pregnancies end after just six weeks, leaving the parent to find childcare as he or she returns to the workplace. Badger’s policy allows the parent to bring the child to the workplace until a specified time: in most cases until the baby is six months old or begins crawling.
Badger Mamas & Badger Babies
This program makes breastfeeding easier and allows for the inherent health benefits for both mother and child: enhanced bonding, lessening of daycare costs and more financial stability, great social network and extended-family support for both parent and child, and an easier transition to off-site child care. Once children are ready for off-site care, they have the option of attending the Calendula Garden Children’s Center. This option offers reasonably-priced, high quality, flexible childcare for children of Badger employees, as well as a limited number of children from the greater community. The center itself is located in the renovated house that was the former home to the Badger Company, a quarter of a mile down the road from the company’s current facility. Badger, in a sense, creates its own “village” to support both parent and child!
Calendula Garden Child Care Center
Another exemplary aspect of employee care is their free lunch program. This is a daily organic lunch served during a paid 30-minute break. Every day their fabulous cooks prepare a free, home-cooked lunch for all of the Badgers made from 100% organic and mostly local foods. During the summer months, much of the produce comes right from their Badger vegetable garden! Read more about Badger’s impressive employee benefits here.
Free organic lunch!
Product Certifications
Badger believes that third-party certifications take the guesswork out of claims made on cosmetics and personal care items. This means that they adhere to the standards and guidelines of any third party agency certifying their products. Their products are certified organic by both the USDA and the NSF, many of the ingredients are Fair Trade certified, and all products are certified gluten-free and certified cruelty-free.
Check out this short video to hear from Badger Bill about the values that make his company unique:
You might be familiar with Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but nestled between these two frenzied shopping days, on Saturday, November 26th, is Small Business Saturday! This is a day to celebrate and support small businesses and all that they do for their communities. When you choose to shop at local, independent, family-owned stores, you’re keeping your hard-earned money circulating in your own community, supporting local families and local jobs. These shops are the backbone of our community and help keep our local economy vibrant & strong, so be sure to visit them this Saturday for your holiday shopping needs! Many will be offering special holiday sales as an added incentive to shop local on Saturday! Thanks to the fine folks at Cabot, we’ll be giving away free reusable shopping bags on Small Business Saturday, while supplies last!
Need another incentive to shop small on Saturday? Co-op member-owners get special deals & discounts at 20 participating local businesses around town through the Co-op Connection! Looking for locally made, eco-friendly toys? Check out Maple Landmark! Do you have ornaments, jewelry, photo frames, or home decor on your list? Danforth Pewter has a beautiful selection! Maybe you’re looking for a ceramic tea set or packaged loose-leaf teas for the tea lover on your list? Look no further than Stone Leaf Teahouse! Is there a writer or artist in the family? Main Street Stationery has beautiful leather-bound journals and sketch pads! Does someone on your list need shoes, socks, or new winter duds? Check out Green Mountain Shoe & Apparel! Wild Mountain Thyme also offers a beautiful selection of apparel and accessories! And if it’s stocking stuffers you’re looking for, you won’t want to miss Middlebury Sweets! They have over 1,000 different confections including handmade chocolates, bulk candy, jelly beans, taffy, and so much more! This just barely scratches the surface of the many great gifts to be found at these 20 local businesses, so if you’d like to view the full list of participating businesses and see what deals they offer to Co-op Members, check out the Co-op Connection Brochure.
Beyond the Co-op Connection businesses, our community is lucky to have a wide array of local, independently-owned bookstores, galleries, gift shops, chocolatiers, spas, boutiques, and eateries from which to buy a gift or gift card. When you’re scanning that holiday gift list – think local and think small!
With the season of thankfulness upon us, we’re feeling overwhelmed with gratitude to see our Co-op so well supported by its member-owners! Our Member Loan Drive has surpassed the $900,000 mark and inching ever closer to our million-dollar goal!! WOW!!
Our December 1st deadline is fast approaching, so if you’ve been considering a loan to the Co-op, now’s the time! If you’ve already made a pledge, now’s the time to mail in or drop off your paper work and check to get in on the action. Help bring us home for Thanksgiving!
Do you have questions about the Member Loan Drive? Please don’t hesitate to reach out! We’d love to hear from you! You can stop by, call us at 388-7276, or email our Member Loan Drive Coordinator, John, at jbbarstow@gmail.com. You can also click here to view the brochure with basic information about this project.
Want to check out the latest expansion plans? Click here!
Thank you for your time and consideration. We hope you’ll join us as we grow together!
We’re casting our Co-op Spotlight this week on a local favorite – Lake Champlain Chocolates!All of their mouth-watering chocolates are 20% off for member-owners this week, so it’s a great time to stock up on stocking stuffers. Read on to learn more about this local confectionery that has called Vermont home since 1983:
According to the folks at Lake Champlain Chocolates, Vermont is more than an address; it’s home. It’s where they live, who they are, and how they choose to do business. And from the first truffle in 1983 to the present day, Vermont has inspired the folks at Lake Champlain Chocolates to take a craftsman’s approach to chocolate: creativity, patience, and mastery.
What began as a truffle-making venture has now grown to include a long list of tasty treats from fudge to sea salted caramels and beyond. And with each new product, their original commitment to excellence has remained the same. They have remained true to their mission of seeking out the best and freshest ingredients from local farmers and producers and they’ve been doing it that way long before it was cool. Call it Vermont instinct, but even back in ’83, it just made sense that using local honey, maple syrup, and fresh cream in their Chocolates of Vermont would result in superior flavor. Those same instincts also guided the decision to never add preservatives, extenders, or additives to any of their chocolates.
Lampman Family
Fair Trade:
Beyond labeling individual products as “fair trade” — an ongoing process in itself — the entire company is now certified Fair for Life. Fair for Life is a rigorous third-party certification for social accountability and fair trade. Above and beyond fair trade certification, it looks at a company’s practices as a whole, including the ingredients used in its products. LCC undergoes regular audits to ensure every step of its supply chain is socially legit. Not just the cocoa, but every link they have as a business, including their own employees’ working conditions here in Vermont.
Why? Because of their belief that every person in the process should be treated and compensated fairly. And that means everyone in the supply chain — from the farmers who grow and harvest the cocoa, to those who transport it, transform it into chocolate, process your order, package it, and ensure it arrives ready for you to enjoy.
This certification affirms the following:
A price premium is paid to the cocoa farmers and co-ops.
Certified products originate from fair trade producer operations.
LCC is engaged in long-term partnerships and socially responsible trading practices with its suppliers/purveyors.
LCC respects the labor rights of its own employees, providing good working conditions.
LCC is a good community citizen and practices environmental responsibility.
Blue Bandana Bean-To-Bar:
Blue Bandana is an award-winning line of single-origin craft chocolate bars launched in 2012 by Eric Lampman, head of R&D at Lake Champlain Chocolates and son of founder Jim Lampman. Born from a desire to go deeper into the chocolate-making process, the micro-batch chocolate bars are produced in Vermont using cocoa beans sourced directly from their origin.
With the Blue Bandana line, they’re following a “direct trade” model. As the name implies, there’s no middleman, so the supply chain is that much shorter. This allows them to build one-on-one relationships with farmers and sponsor local initiatives in the communities where the cacao is grown. There’s a direct feedback loop with growers and co-ops, and that makes a huge difference in the quality of the end product.
For LCC as a whole, fair trade still offers the best solution. Going 100% direct trade company-wide would be a real challenge, for a few reasons — sheer quantity, for starters. Bottom line, fair trade and direct trade are both valid ways to do the right thing, make sure farmers get a fair shake, and get to know your supply chain.
Eric Lampman in the Dominican Republic
Uncompromising Quality:
All of the products at Lake Champlain Chocolates are certified Kosher with zero additives or shelf extenders and the goal is to use non-GMO ingredients whenever possible. Of course, their certified organic chocolates are 100% GMO-free as guaranteed by the organic certification.
Factory Tours:
Want to see how their chocolates are made? Take a FREE Factory Tour!
Monday-Friday, 10am-2pm
Tours on the hour
Self-Guided Tours after 3pm
FREE Chocolate Tastings
Saturday & Sunday, 11am to 4pm
Co+op Basics offers everyday low priceson hundreds of popular grocery and household items. From milk and bread to laundry soap and paper towels, you’ll find brands you know and trust at prices you can afford. There are hundreds of items in Co-op Basics, and here are just a few to help you get ready for the Holiday Season!
We’re casting our Co-op Spotlight on Elmer Farm this week to celebrate this 90-acre organic farm and the farmers who give life to it. Member-owners can enjoy 20% their glorious spread of organic vegetables this week. Read on to learn more about the history and heritage of this farm, which has been providing food for its community since the early 1800’s!
Driving into East Middlebury on Route 116, it’s hard to miss the beautiful patch of flowers bording the white farmouse at the entryway to Elmer Farm. What you might not see from the road are the amazing fields of vegetables that are grown on this fertile, organic soil. Elmer Farm is a conserved 90-acre farm where Spencer & Jennifer Blackwell grow 25 acres of mixed vegetables, grains, and dry beans, all of which are certified organic. Annual inspections and certification by Vermont Organic Farmers (VOF) ensure that the crops are grown responsibly and safely without the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides.
The farm belonged to the Elmer family since the early 1800’s and has a long heritage of providing food for its community. The receding glaciers bestowed the farm with a wonderful mix of fertile soils and sandy loam, perfectly suited to growing vegetables and grains. More than 35 different vegetables are grown on the farm, plus an impressive array of flowers and culinary herbs. This inlcudes over 200 different varieties, including many heirlooms.
Spencer and Jennifer Blackwell, along with their children, Ida & Angus, and their hard-working crew of farmhands are proud to grow vegetables for their community, neighbors, and friends in Addison County. They value hard work and the agrarian quality of life. They are committed to our community through various farm-to-school efforts as well as gleaning for local food agencies. In fact, Spencer helped spearhead the Local Food Access Program at HOPE. A number of years ago, representatives from HOPE, Middlebury College, ACORN, and the local business community, along with several local farmers, including Spencer from Elmer Farm and Will Stevens of Golden Russet Farm, got together to discuss the possibility of increasing the amount of locally grown food offered at HOPE’s food shelf. This group recognized that Addison County farmers grow vast amounts of beautiful, healthy organic fruits and vegetables, which are often unavailable or too pricey to those who need it most. They also recognized that these farms often had excess produce available that would not be destined for retail markets, which could instead be diverted to the food shelf.
Fast-forward to present day, and the idea hatched by this group has evolved into an incredibly successful program that is bringing thousands of pounds of healthy, local foods to those in our community who need it most and diverting a lot of food from the waste stream. By the end of 2015, more than 10,797 pounds of surplus produce had been donated by Elmer Farm, along with many other local farms. This requires a monumental and tireless effort on the part of the farmers and a heck of a lot of coordinating and processing effort from HOPEs Local Food Access Coordinator, Lily Bradburn.
At the Co-op, you can find Elmer Farm’s organic cabbage, red & yellow onions, butternut squash, baby bok choy, radishes, leeks, scallions, kale, chard, and their famous carrots! You can also subscribe to their CSA, where you will receive fresh vegetables, flowers and herbs each week from mid-June through the end of October for a total of 20 weeks. Also be sure to check out the recipes on their web page!
Election Day has come and gone, but we’re reaching out to remind you of another democratic institution right here in your community- your Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op! And at the co-op your vote really matters, regardless of your party or beliefs. As a different kind of business, we ascribe to cooperative principles and values and we use our profits to serve our members and community. But this also means when it’s time to change and grow, we rely on help from our member-owners. That is why we are asking you to participate in our Member Loan Campaign!
We are already more than three-quarters of the way to our goal of raising $1,000,000 by December 1st and we’d love to keep the momentum going! If you have already made a loan, THANK YOU!!! If you haven’t, we invite you to check out the brochure by clicking here and consider helping us reach our goal. Have questions? Let us know! Give us a call at 388-7276, or email Loan Coordinator John Barstow at jbbarstow@gmail.com. We’d love to offer additional information and help guide you through this simple process.
Want to check out the latest expansion plans? Click here!
Thank you so much for your support! It means the world to us!!
Our Annual Rally for Change for local food shelves, CVOEO and HOPE starts on November 10th! Just round up your total (or feel free to give more!) at the registers between 11/10 and 11/16 and the Co-op will match your donation! What an easy way to do good this holiday season!
Hunger is not just an issue on the other side of the world. Food insecurity is right at home in Vermont, and no one works on the front lines to combat this in Addison County like our two local food shelves – CVOEO and HOPE. These two organizations spend a lot of their resources trying to get food to hungry Vermonters, but that’s not the whole story. Want to know more? Read on, to here about them, in their own words:
Linda Tirado knows poverty first hand. She has lived in it for the majority of her adult life. She also knows what it is to live in the middle class. In her book, Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America, she gives a definition of poverty that puts our world in perspective. “Poverty is when a quarter is a miracle. Poor is when a dollar is a miracle. Broke is when five bucks is a miracle. Wor-
king class is being broke, but doing so in a place that might not be run down. Middle class is being able to own some toys and live in a nice place – and by ”nice” I don’t mean fancy.”
In Addison County: 1 in 5 children and youth know hunger; over 3,500 residents participate in the 3Squares VT program; there are 26 summer meal sites; and 10 senior meal sites server older citizens several times a week, all summer long. Last summer, between May 1st and August 30th, CVOEO’s Food Shelf in Middlebury served 1,299 individuals. 342 of this number were under the age of 18, and 209 were seniors. Individuals and families come from towns throughout Addison County.
Donna Rose is the Food Shelf Coordinator. We are located at 54 Creek Road in Middlebury. CVOEO is a nonprofit corporation, formed in 1965 to carry out the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 in Addison, Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle counties. CVOEO is one of five Community Action Agencies in Vermont. Its mission is to address fundamental issues of economic, social and racial justice. It works with people to achieve economic independence, bridge gaps and build futures. For more information, go to https://www.cvoeo.org/
HOPE is a private, locally governed organization that has been alleviating the distress of poverty in Addison County for over 50 years by providing a broad range of individualized services & opportunities. HOPE’s staff members don’t say “this is what we can do”, rather they ask “what do you need?” HOPE fills in the gaps left by government programs, including help with heating & housing, medicines, job-related needs & more. They provide assistance to homeless persons, including those with significant housing barriers such as severe mental illness & substance abuse disorders.
HOPE offers healthy holiday meal baskets, and in the the HOPE Holiday Shop, low-income parents can select, free of charge, new clothing, toys and books for their children.
HOPE runs the largest food shelf in Addison County, serving an average of 600 people each month. Last year, they provided food to 6,248 people, including 481 senior citizens and 1,659 children. In 2015, they provided food for over 61,000 meals, distributed 10,797 pounds of local farm produce, & provided nearly 400 holiday meal boxes. This year they are on track to exceed their 2015 numbers.
HOPE’s Local Food Access Coordinator, Lily Bradburn, has been working with local farmers, picking up donated produce, leading crews to glean food in the fields, & purchasing crops for winter storage. Volunteers are needed to glean, process and cook food. For more information or to volunteer, call 802-388-3608. HOPE is located at 282 Boardman St., behind Homeward Bound. For more information, please go to http://www.hope-vt.org/
