Looking for ways to support BIPOC farmers and producers? Woman-owned businesses? LGBTQIA+ businesses? Veteran-owned businesses? Businesses owned by persons with disabilities? Look for the Inclusive Trade logo!
Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op has partnered with the National Co-operative Grocers (NCG) to highlight diversity throughout our supply chain.
“NCG believes supply chains should include a seat at the table for systemically underrepresented populations. Supplier diversity promotes greater innovation, a healthier competitive environment, and more equitably distributed benefits among all community members. NCG is committed to doing our part to create a more just society by cultivating partnerships with businesses owned by people who identify as women, Black, indigenous, people of color (POC), LGBTQIA+, persons with disabilities, and veterans.”
Our Co-op celebrates inclusive trade and features a lineup of hand-made meals from Inclusive Trade businesses including:
Of course, this is just a small sampling of the Inclusive Trade producers that our Co-op is proud to work with, so remember to look for the logo throughout the store!
This week’s Member Deals Spotlight casts a bright beacon on a family-owned, Inclusive Trade business that brings authentic Mexican flavor with an allergen-friendly twist — Siete Foods! Read on to learn more about the Siete story and the family who is committed to offering authentic heritage food with a healthy spin:
When Siete Foods co-founder and president Veronica Garza was diagnosed as a teenager with multiple debilitating autoimmune conditions, she turned to her close-knit family of seven (Siete!) for support. They began exercising in the family’s backyard in South Texas, eventually opening their own CrossFit gym, and began learning about the healing power of food. In solidarity, the entire family joined Veronica on her journey to adopt a low-inflammation elimination diet. Healing began, but as a Mexican-American family, eating their beloved fajitas and tacos on a lettuce leaf simply lacked the usual appeal. Determined to reclaim the cultural foods so important to her family, Veronica began experimenting with grain-free tortillas and knew she’d landed on a winning recipe when her grandma Campos told her that they tasted better than the homemade flour tortillas she’d been making for decades.
The offerings have since expanded beyond tortillas to include a full line of grain-free tortilla chips, savory sauces, cookies, and more! What hasn’t changed has been the family’s dedication to their mission and values. Siete Family Foods is a mission-based company, and they’re passionate about making and sharing real food, gathering together in authentic community, and advocating for healthier lifestyles among Latinx families. The entire family remains involved with the operation of the business in various capacities and they make a concerted effort to prioritize diversity in hiring within the organization.
Their mission is to:
Boldly build the leading better-for-you Mexican-American food brand,
Embody a juntos es mejor culture: value humility, foster diversity, love people always.
Operate with a family first, family second, business third attitude.
Positively impact the lives of underserved communities through education, entrepreneurship, and wellness.
With their mission in mind, they created the Siete Juntos Fund, which aims to uplift and celebrate taco culture by awarding funding to Latinx-owned taco businesses across the nation. In 2022, the Juntos Fund provided $40,000 to three taquerias who showed not only a passion for making delicious food, but also a passion for building authentic community and sharing pieces of their culture and their story with others. Click here to learn more.
If you’re looking for tasty inspiration in the form of grain-free recipes that incorporate Siete products, click here.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day is celebrated on the second Monday of October and offers a time to honor the historic and cultural significance of the Indigenous Peoples here in Vermont and beyond, with the recognition that our country was founded and built upon unceded lands that Indigenous communities have inhabited and stewarded since time immemorial. The Western Abenaki are the traditional caretakers of these Vermont lands and waters, which they call Ndakinna. With this in mind, we wanted to shine an extra bright Member Deals Spotlight on Singing Cedars Apiaries, which, according to their website, was started by native Abenaki Roland Smith and his wife Deborah in the basement of their teepee in 1971. From October 5th – 11th, Co-op member-owners can enjoy a 20% discount on all of Singing Cedars Apiaries’ glorious honey products! Read on to learn more about this family-owned business and their commitment to providing you the best honey the Champlain Valley has to offer:
Singing Cedars Apiaries is a family operation started by native Abenaki Roland (Wants To Be Chief) and his wife Deborah (Little Cloud Big Storm) in the basement of their teepee in 1971. According to their website, they specialize in producing pure raw honey for retail sale, and nucleus colonies and queens both for their own enterprise and to sell to other beekeepers. A feature in American Bee Journal also points out that they sell their beeswax to candle makers and crafters, maximizing the use of every material their bees produce. In true family fashion, Roland, Deborah, and their four children developed this apiary which now manages over 1100 colonies with their grandchildren and Son-in-Laws Christopher (Hates to Bee Sticky) and Tim (Aboriginee) doing much of the work. Deborah was heavily involved with the beekeeping in the beginning, though now she has her hands full managing the office handling all of the orders of honey, queens, and nucs.
Over the years they’ve established authentic relationships with each of the local retail outlets that offer their honey. Roland points out that the customers they’ve served for 20-plus years, with whom they have developed strong working relationships are the foundation of their stable business. Their bees are spread out over both sides of Lake Champlain in both Vermont and New York. Their forage primarily consists of white Dutch clover, honeysuckle, basswood, goldenrod, and asters. In a good year, they’re able to produce 100 – 150 pounds of honey per hive!
Singing Cedars offers a variety of honey products, including creamed honey flavored with natural oils. Their honey is unpasteurized to retain all the natural goodness nature provided in its enzymes and pollen, and unfiltered yet strained to remove any wax and propolis sometimes associated with raw honey to provide a rich smooth product for your enjoyment.
Looking for ways to support BIPOC farmers and producers? Woman-owned businesses? LGBTQIA+ businesses? Veteran-owned businesses? Businesses owned by persons with disabilities? Look for the Inclusive Trade logo! We’re celebrating Inclusive Trade Week at the Co-op from March 23rd – 29th as a way of honoring diversity in the supply chain, and our Weekly Sale features a lineup of some tasty Inclusive Trade treats, many of which are local! Curious to know more about this logo and why inclusive trade matters? Read on!
National Co-op Grocers (NCG) has launched the Inclusive Trade logo to highlight diversity throughout the supply chain.
“NCG believes supply chains should include a seat at the table for systemically underrepresented populations. Supplier diversity promotes greater innovation, a healthier competitive environment, and more equitably distributed benefits among all community members. NCG is committed to doing our part to create a more just society by cultivating partnerships with businesses owned by people who identify as women, Black, indigenous, people of color (POC), LGBTQIA+, persons with disabilities, and veterans.”
As a member of NCG, your Co-op celebrates this new initiative and seeks to find ways to highlight diversity in the supply chain so that you can easily find products from diverse suppliers. With this in mind, we’ll run promotions throughout the year to highlight the many Inclusive Trade producers we offer here at the Co-op. In fact, our Member Deals Spotlight from October 6th – 12th shines brightly on Singing Cedars Apiary, which was started by native Abenaki Roland Smith and his wife Deborah in 1971.
Of course, Singing Cedars is just one of the Inclusive Trade producers that our Co-op is proud to work with, so remember to look for the logo throughout the store!
To learn more about inclusive trade and why it matters, we love this post from our friends at Oryana Co-op and are excited to share it with their permission:
National Cooperative Grocers (NCG), of which Oryana [and the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op] is a member, is developing an Inclusive Trade Program designed to identify suppliers that meet the definition for “diverse suppliers” and ultimately increase the representation of these suppliers in purchasing programs and supply chain. To jumpstart these efforts, NCG has worked with UNFI’s (UNFI is our main distributor) supplier diversity team to apply its classification of diverse suppliers.
Background
As a purchasing cooperative NCG has been effective at aggregating demand to create benefits for co-ops, consumer-owners, and shoppers. By adding a focus on supplier diversity to purchasing program they can increase impact: use enterprise as a lever in anti-racist efforts, do more to ensure that they have greater representation within the supply chain, and provide consumers with more diverse options and better information about the people behind the products they purchase. With the influence co-ops have through NCG, they can take a unique leadership role in championing diversity in our industry; intentionally and actively contributing to the equity and justice of our supply chain.
NCG started integrating supplier diversity into its business plan last year. Shortly after initiating this work and following the murder of George Floyd, they saw a marked uptick in the level of interest expressed by co-ops in identifying BIPOC-owned brands (and Black-owned brands in particular). They were disappointed however that the major distributors were not able to assist at that time with reliably and comprehensively identifying diverse ownership among consumer brands.
On the basis of this challenge, they spent the next few months conducting research on supplier diversity initiatives in our industry, drew on that research to establish NCG’s working definition of “diverse supplier,” and started planning to build out a supplier diversity program to serve co-ops.
Supplier diversity at NCG
Supplier diversity is a proactive business strategy that drives the inclusion of diverse-owned businesses in the procurement of goods and services. Most supplier diversity programs encourage the use within the business of suppliers that are minority-owned*, women-owned, veteran-owned, LGBTQIA+-owned, or owned by persons with disabilities in keeping with the Small Business Administration (SBA) defined small business concerns.
Supplier diversity programs seek to upend the reality for historically under-utilized, diverse-owned suppliers by sourcing products and services from them. This process transforms a company’s supply chain to reflect the demographics of the community it serves and quantifies the total value of the transactions with diverse suppliers. Most supplier diversity programs span all areas of “spend” for a business, including not just goods purchased for resale but also supplies, services, etc.
*Though the term “minority” is appropriately falling out of use, it is still commonly used among supplier diversity professionals. This is in large part due to the reality that businesses seeking formal recognition as a minority-owned enterprise pursue certification through the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSCDC). NCG uses this term only in this context.
While supplier diversity programs are not new and are common practice among large enterprises and in government contracting, research indicates that most companies in the natural products industry are at best in the formative stages of any supplier diversity work.
With no established, standardized, industry-wide definition of “diverse suppliers” or means of identifying which brands/companies have diverse ownership, NCG has adopted the following preliminary definition of supplier diversity:
“A diverse supplier is defined as a business that is at least 51% owned and operated by an individual or group that is part of a systemically underrepresented or underserved group; including businesses that are women-owned, BIPOC-owned, LGBTQIA+-owned, veteran/service-disabled veteran-owned, or owned by persons with disabilities. As with most supplier diversity programs NCG will request that suppliers self-identify as a diverse supplier.”
NCG is committed to Inclusive Trade and believes supply chains should include a seat at the table for systemically underrepresented suppliers. They believe that supplier diversity promotes greater innovation, a healthier competitive environment, and more equitably distributes benefits among all community members. They are committed to doing their part to create a more just society by cultivating partnerships with businesses owned by people who identify as women, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, LGBTQIA+, persons with disabilities, and veterans. They will share more updates with you as this important work progresses.
This week, we’re casting our Co-op Spotlight on a Vermont dairy that keeps us stocked with local, organic milk and some of the best ice cream we’ve ever tasted. Strafford Organic Creamery is nestled in the hills of Strafford, Vermont on the 600-acre Rockbottom Farm, which has been in the family for two generations. From November 3rd – 9th, all Strafford Organic Dairy products are 20% off for member-owners as we shine some extra light on this Real Organic dairy farm. Read on to learn more about this family-run dairy’s commitment to reusable packaging, and their advocacy for small, pasture-based organic farms that prioritize animal welfare and environmental stewardship:
Farmer Earl Ransom and his wife, Amy Huyffer, milk 65 grass-fed Guernsey cows and carry on the tradition of tending the land organically without the use of pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers, just as Earl’s father did when he first founded the farm in the 1960s. Amy generally focuses on running the creamery while Earl handles the farming aspects of the operation. Their four boys also help out on the farm, making it a true family affair.
Their herd is made up of Guernsey cows, famous for their rich, yellow cream, perfect for making premium milk and ice cream. The cows spend the entire growing season rotating on fresh pasture, grazing high-quality forage including grass, alfalfa, legumes, and clover. They rotationally graze across 56 paddocks, moving onto fresh pasture every 12 hours, turning sunshine into food, and sequestering carbon along the way. This same forage is harvested and stored for feeding the cows through the colder months. According to Amy and Earl, “everything we do, from the crops we grow for them to the gentle routines of milking, is focused on their comfort and well-being, and helping them create super-tasty milk and cream.”
Their commitment to the environment is not only evident in the way they chose to farm, but also in the reusable glass packaging they choose for their milk. In December of 2019, when Kimball Brook Farm announced they would be ceasing production of their organic dairy products, Amy and Earl received many requests from retailers asking Strafford Organic Creamery to consider switching to plastic jugs to fill the void left on the retail shelves in the wake of Kimball Brook’s closure. After reaching out to gather community input and giving consideration to the vast quantity of virgin plastic that transition would add to the waste stream, they held strong on their commitment to packaging their milk in reusable glass. According to Amy, “we don’t get all our first choices on everything we do, but we do get to choose how we care for this beautiful piece of land, which cows to milk and how to feed and house them, what ingredients to add (or not add) to our products, and what kind of bottle to put it in. It feels really good, after going to all the trouble to make milk like this, to put it in a bottle that will keep the milk cold on the counter, seal in the flavor, and that we’ll see circle around again next month.”
We deeply appreciate Earl & Amy’s commitment to Real Organic dairy farming and their advocacy for small pasture-based organic farms that prioritize environmental stewardship and animal welfare. Earl has been featured in the Real Organic Project’s podcast, helping us better understand the pressures facing small, pasture-based, Real Organic dairy farms that choose to farm in harmony with nature in a market flooded with overproduction from mega-sized, confined, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) who are able to pass as “organic” dairy farms as a result of poor regulation and oversight.
Despite the ailing state of the dairy industry in Vermont, Earl credits their ongoing success to their loyal local fanbase and the fact that their farm controls their own production, bottling their own milk since 2001 and making weekly batches of their ice cream by hand. He believes that there is a place for Vermont dairy in the broader agricultural landscape, despite the challenges the industry faces and he’s optimistic that his sons will want to carry the torch into the next generation at Rockbottom Farm.
Looking for ways to support BIPOC farmers and producers? Woman-owned businesses? LGBTQIA+ businesses? Veteran-owned businesses? Businesses owned by persons with disabilities? Look for the Inclusive Trade logo! Curious to know more about this logo and why inclusive trade matters? Read on!
National Co-op Grocers (NCG) has launched the Inclusive Trade logo to highlight diversity throughout the supply chain.
“NCG believes supply chains should include a seat at the table for systemically underrepresented populations. Supplier diversity promotes greater innovation, a healthier competitive environment, and more equitably distributed benefits among all community members. NCG is committed to doing our part to create a more just society by cultivating partnerships with businesses owned by people who identify as women, Black, indigenous, people of color (POC), LGBTQIA+, persons with disabilities, and veterans.”
As a member of NCG, your Co-op celebrates this new initiative and seeks to find ways to highlight diversity in the supply chain so that you can easily find products from diverse suppliers. With this in mind, we’ll run promotions throughout the year to highlight the many Inclusive Trade producers we offer here at the Co-op. In fact, our Member Deals Spotlight from October 6th – 12th shines brightly on Singing Cedars Apiary, which was started by native Abenaki Roland Smith and his wife Deborah in 1971.
Of course, Singing Cedars is just one of the Inclusive Trade producers that our Co-op is proud to work with, so remember to look for the logo throughout the store!
To learn more about inclusive trade and why it matters, we love this post from our friends at Oryana Co-op and are excited to share it with their permission:
National Cooperative Grocers (NCG), of which Oryana [and the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op] is a member, is developing an Inclusive Trade Program designed to identify suppliers that meet the definition for “diverse suppliers” and ultimately increase the representation of these suppliers in purchasing programs and supply chain. To jumpstart these efforts, NCG has worked with UNFI’s (UNFI is our main distributor) supplier diversity team to apply its classification of diverse suppliers.
Background
As a purchasing cooperative NCG has been effective at aggregating demand to create benefits for co-ops, consumer-owners, and shoppers. By adding a focus on supplier diversity to purchasing program they can increase impact: use enterprise as a lever in anti-racist efforts, do more to ensure that they have greater representation within the supply chain, and provide consumers with more diverse options and better information about the people behind the products they purchase. With the influence co-ops have through NCG, they can take a unique leadership role in championing diversity in our industry; intentionally and actively contributing to the equity and justice of our supply chain.
NCG started integrating supplier diversity into its business plan last year. Shortly after initiating this work and following the murder of George Floyd, they saw a marked uptick in the level of interest expressed by co-ops in identifying BIPOC-owned brands (and Black-owned brands in particular). They were disappointed however that the major distributors were not able to assist at that time with reliably and comprehensively identifying diverse ownership among consumer brands.
On the basis of this challenge, they spent the next few months conducting research on supplier diversity initiatives in our industry, drew on that research to establish NCG’s working definition of “diverse supplier,” and started planning to build out a supplier diversity program to serve co-ops.
Supplier diversity at NCG
Supplier diversity is a proactive business strategy that drives the inclusion of diverse-owned businesses in the procurement of goods and services. Most supplier diversity programs encourage the use within the business of suppliers that are minority-owned*, women-owned, veteran-owned, LGBTQIA+-owned, or owned by persons with disabilities in keeping with the Small Business Administration (SBA) defined small business concerns.
Supplier diversity programs seek to upend the reality for historically under-utilized, diverse-owned suppliers by sourcing products and services from them. This process transforms a company’s supply chain to reflect the demographics of the community it serves and quantifies the total value of the transactions with diverse suppliers. Most supplier diversity programs span all areas of “spend” for a business, including not just goods purchased for resale but also supplies, services, etc.
*Though the term “minority” is appropriately falling out of use, it is still commonly used among supplier diversity professionals. This is in large part due to the reality that businesses seeking formal recognition as a minority-owned enterprise pursue certification through the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSCDC). NCG uses this term only in this context.
While supplier diversity programs are not new and are common practice among large enterprises and in government contracting, research indicates that most companies in the natural products industry are at best in the formative stages of any supplier diversity work.
With no established, standardized, industry-wide definition of “diverse suppliers” or means of identifying which brands/companies have diverse ownership, NCG has adopted the following preliminary definition of supplier diversity:
“A diverse supplier is defined as a business that is at least 51% owned and operated by an individual or group that is part of a systemically underrepresented or underserved group; including businesses that are women-owned, BIPOC-owned, LGBTQIA+-owned, veteran/service-disabled veteran-owned, or owned by persons with disabilities. As with most supplier diversity programs NCG will request that suppliers self-identify as a diverse supplier.”
NCG is committed to Inclusive Trade and believes supply chains should include a seat at the table for systemically underrepresented suppliers. They believe that supplier diversity promotes greater innovation, a healthier competitive environment, and more equitably distributes benefits among all community members. They are committed to doing their part to create a more just society by cultivating partnerships with businesses owned by people who identify as women, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, LGBTQIA+, persons with disabilities, and veterans. They will share more updates with you as this important work progresses.
In honor of our duel celebrations of Fair Trade Month and Non-GMO Month, we’re excited to be featuring a lineup of some of our favorite Fairtrade Certified, non-GMO Verified ingredients in our weekly sale from October 14th – 20th. In that display, you’ll find most of the ingredients for this fantastic one-pot curry dish that comes to us from fairtradecertified.org. The curry is especially delicious served over a steaming bed of Lotus Foods organic heirloom Tri-Color Blend rice, also featured in the sale. The wild-caught Orca Bay tuna featured this week also bears certification from the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), which aims to promote and support diversity in the global supply chain. Orca Bay is an Alaska Native Owned business and proceeds from your purchase of their products support Alaska Native communities. Supplier diversity programs such as this seek to upend the reality for historically under-utilized, diverse-owned suppliers and help transform our supply chain to better reflect the rich diversity of the communities they serve.
