February 16, 2017

Spotlight on Annie’s

We’re shining our Co-op Spotlight on Annie’s this week to highlight their mission to “make organic for everybunny”. All of Annie’s products are 20% off for member-owners from February 16th – 22nd, so it’s a great time to stock up and save on all of your favorites. Read on to learn more about Annie’s history and mission:

History

It all began in 1989 with a young lady named Annie Withey who believed it was possible to start a business that was both socially conscious and successful. Annie started by making delicious mac & cheese and selling it out of the trunk of her car. Now, nearly 30 years later Annie’s remains devoted to the business of good: creating good food, demonstrating good business practices, and helping build good communities.

Organic Commitment

The folks at Annie’s feel passionate about increasing access to organic foods. They focus on organic ingredients because they believe they’re better for you and for farmers, animals, and the environment. Certified Organic always means non-GMO, avoiding toxic, persistent pesticides, and so much more. We all benefit when there are fewer chemicals in our soils, water, food and air. Click here to read more about Annie’s commitment to organic.

Giving Back

In addition to offering an array of healthy and organic foods, Annie’s is proud to support the next generation of farmers committed to sustainable farming practices. They have two wonderful programs to help achieve this end:

Through their Grants for Gardens program, they’ve funded hundreds of school gardens to help kids connect with the source of their nourishment, encouraging them to think more holistically about their food, their communities, and the planet.

Thanks to their Sustainable Agriculture Scholarship Program, they’re able to offer $150,000 yearly in funds to college students studying sustainable agriculture. This year, 15 winners will each be eligible to receive $10,000 from Annie’s to help kickstart their adventures in sustainable farming.

When you buy Annie’s products, you cast a vote in support food education and make healthy gardens accessible to hundreds of students across the country.

Keeping it Green

Packaging: The crew at Annie’s recognize the large role that product packaging plays in pollution and climate change. The natural resources required to make packaging is just the start. Yes, plenty of packaging is recyclable or compostable, but when it ends up in a landfill, it might give off methane, a potent greenhouse gas. If it’s incinerated instead, it releases CO2 into the atmosphere. And packaging that weighs more requires more fossil fuels to transport. Annie’s works hard to take all of this into account, using sustainable materials that are recyclable or compostable and light to transport.

Facilities: Annie’s has maintained both LEED Gold and Bay Area Green Business Certifications since 2013 at their Berkeley, CA headquarters. In 2016, they received the Climate Disruptor award, recognizing their efforts to reduce their environmental footprint. Additionally, they monitor and encourage energy efficient practices among their suppliers, gaining insight into the supplier’s energy practices, greenhouse emissions, water use and waste output. To encourage improvement, they give an Annual Green Bernie Award to an exemplary supplier demonstrating continuous improvement for at least two years in a row and documenting high performance in one or more of these areas: energy, waste, water, and climate change.

Be sure to check out their web page for fun recipes!

February 2, 2017

Spotlight on Organic Valley

We’re shining our Co-op spotlight this week on America’s largest cooperative of organic farmers – Organic Valley! All Organic Valley products are 20% off for member-owners from February 2nd – 8th! Read on to learn more about Organic Valley’s rich history, their commitment to their farmer-owners, and to the environment:

In the 1980’s, a dairy farming crisis was underway. The price for milk fell below production costs and the dairy farmers producing it were facing economic extinction. Farmers were told to “get big or get out”. Industrial, chemical farming was presented as the only existing option for survival. Never mind its effects on our health, our animals, and our environment.

There were many farmers who simply didn’t want to be industrial, chemical farmers at the mercy of corporate agriculture. Thankfully, in 1988 a Wisconsin farmer named George Siemon hung posters calling like-minded farmers in his community to band together. Family farmers filled the Viroqua county courthouse and all agreed that there had to be a better, more sustainable way to continue doing the work they loved in a way that protects the land, animals, economy and people’s health. And that’s how their farmer-owned cooperative was born.

This pioneering group of farmers set high organic standards, which eventually served as the framework for the USDA’s organic rules. The cooperative first focused on organic vegetables, calling themselves the CROPP (Coulee Region Organic Produce Pool) Cooperative, and within a year they expanded to include organic dairy. Demand for their organic products grew, as did farmers’ interest in joining the thriving cooperative. Interest came from farmers and consumers all over the country, and it became clear that they needed a new name to represent their broader base. With that, the CROPP cooperative became Organic Valley.

Now, almost 30 years later, Organic Valley continues to produce some of the highest quality organic dairy, vegetables, soy, and eggs. They remain farmer-owned and remain true to the powerful working model that puts the environment, wholesome quality food, and the farmer first.

Click HERE to read more about the family of farmers that make up the Organic Valley Co-op and find out if there are any near you!

Click HERE for the top 5 reasons to choose organic.

Click HERE to read about sustainability initiatives at Organic Valley.

Click HERE for fabulous recipes.

January 26, 2017

Spotlight on Spectrum

We’re casting our Co-op Spotlight on Spectrum this week and all of their products are 20% off for member-owners! Read on to find out more about what makes Spectrum shine.

Spectrum Naturals

The Spectrum Naturals brand started over twenty years ago with the purpose of making a variety of oils available to the American public. Their line of culinary oils and vinegars includes more than 30 varieties of seed, nut and plant oils including coconut oil, as well as a variety of vinegars, mayonnaise products, cooking sprays and non-hydrogenated shortening, many of which are organic and/or non-GMO verified. Gourmet food lovers will find extra virgin olive oils from Spain, Italy and Tunisia, each estate-grown and produced in small batches.

Spectrum Essentials

Spectrum Essentials refers to the company’s line of dietary supplements aimed at supporting good health by providing essential fatty acids (EFAs) like Omega-3, Omega-6, Vitamin D and other vital nutrients. The Spectrum Essentials line offered at the Co-op features flaxseed oils & fish oils. They use the highest quality raw ingredients that deliver nature’s essential health benefits and offer supplements for every day for every life stage.

American Masters of Taste

The Spectrum Naturals line of culinary oils are recommended for chefs by chefs and have been endorsed by The American Masters of Taste. A national panel of executive chefs evaluates each product based on many attributes such as taste, appearance, character, and flavor. The following Spectrum Naturals products have been awarded the seal:

Organic Virgin Coconut Oil, Unrefined
Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Organic Extra Virgin Mediterranean Olive Oil
Organic Canola Oil
High Heat Safflower Oil
Organic All Vegetable Shortening

Click here to check out delicious recipes and suggested uses for Spectrum products!

January 12, 2017

Spotlight on Stonyfield

We’re shining our Co-op Spotlight on Stonyfield this week to highlight their commitment to organic dairy, the family farmers that make it possible, and the Earth that sustains us. Member-owners can enjoy 20% off their full line of organic dairy products this week! Read on to learn more about Stonyfield’s history and a few of their impressive initiatives to help support farmers and the environment.

History

While Stonyfield is best known for making yogurt, yogurt wasn’t the way the founders of Stonyfield thought they’d change the world. In 1983, Stonyfield co-founders Samuel Kaymen and Gary Hirshberg were simply trying to help family farms survive, protect the environment, and keep food and food production healthy through their nonprofit organic farming school.

Just to keep things running, the duo started putting their farm’s seven cows to work making yogurt. They knew they were making healthy food grown with care; what they didn’t expect was how much people would love it.

People went crazy for the yogurt from Samuel and Gary’s little farm school, and the two knew they had found a way to make a real difference. With this yogurt business, the two organic farming teachers could show the whole world that a company could make healthy, delicious food without relying on toxic chemicals that harm the environment and public health.

So, the two went all-in on yogurt and, over 30 years later, they remain steadfast in their mission. They’re still headquartered in New Hampshire, just 30 miles east of the old farm where it all began.

Organic Commitment

Stonyfield’s products are all 100% certified organic – made without the use of toxic persistent pesticides, artificial hormones, antibiotics, and GMOs. In one year alone, their organic ingredient purchases keep more than 185,000 pounds of toxic persistent pesticides from the air, water, and land! WOW!

Supporting Farmers & Caring for the Planet

Stonyfield believes in the importance of supporting family farms and taking care of the world around us. They consider the impact of everything they do–from the plant-based packaging to the quality of the ingredients, to how their products are made, and finally, how it gets to you.

When they learned that the organic farmers cooperative from which they source their bananas was having to endure significant hardships and loss to get the bananas to a processing facility, they knew they needed to step up. Transporting the bananas to the nearest 3rd-party processing plant required farmers to transport their crops on their backs, then by boat, and then by truck to get there. Even under the best conditions, the trip takes many hours and is often fraught with hazard. In the end, up to 40% of the fruit is either lost on the journey or left to rot on the trees. Given the challenges of processing at such a remote facility, there’s little incentive for farmers to fully harvest available fruit or invest in their farms. Upon learning this, Stonyfield invested in a processing plant that is completely owned and operated by the AAPTA growers cooperative, allowing them to cut waste, improve efficiencies and stabilize their income. How cool is that?! Click here to read more about it!

Stonyfield is also helping to jumpstart the next generation of organic farmers. They recognized that the population of organic dairy farmers is aging, and very few people are lining up to take their places as they retire. They decided to play a central role in sustaining and rebuilding organic dairy in America through a groundbreaking training program for organic dairy farmers. In the program, aspiring organic dairy farmers spend two years at Wolfe’s Neck Farm on the coast of Maine. Living on site, they receive intensive training in organic farm and pasture management, animal health and comfort, and business planning. At the end, they pitch their farm business plan to potential investors before setting out on their own. The first group of trainees started in June of 2015. Stonyfield will be following this first batch of farmers on their blog as they move through the program, so stay tuned!

Click HERE to read more about Stonyfield’s sustainability initiatives.

Click HERE for tasty recipes!

December 8, 2016

Spotlight on Bionaturae

Is there a delicious Italian dinner on your menu for the week? Be sure to check out Bionaturae! We’re casting our Co-op Spotlight on Bionaturae this week to shed a little light on this Italian-American partnership that has been bringing us a fine lineup of authentic organic Italian foods for over 20 years! All of their products are 20% off for member-owners this week, so it’s a great time to stock up on these staples. Read on to learn more about this company and their philosophy!

While majoring in Italian in college, Carla Bartolucci spent a year in Italy and met her husband, Rodolfo, who had a background in agriculture. In 1995, the two teamed up and enthusiastically created an organic selection of authentic Italian foods for the American & Canadian markets. Now, more than 20 years later, Bionaturae has remained a family-oriented, privately owned company, with a heartfelt devotion to quality and tradition.

Bionaturæ (bee-oh-na-too-ray) roughly translates to mean “organic nature.” For the founders of the company, it means this and far more. It means the celebration of Old World tradition, of authentic Italian food and of family.

So what makes their products taste so great? A few things come to mind. Rather than the Teflon dies that most commercial pasta makers have turned to, Bionature uses the original bronze dies common to traditional authentic pasta making, resulting in a coarser pasta that holds sauce exceptionally well. Equally important is the slow drying methods they incorporate. Where most modern pastas are heat dried to speed the process, Bionaturae insists on using the more traditional method, which can take as long as 14 hours to dry the pasta and avoids cooking the wheat during the drying process.

According to Carla, “In Italy, we try to eat the foods that are the most seasonal, in their most natural form, with as little done to them as possible, and to eat a wide variety so that we are getting everything we need. The wisest thing, I feel, is to eat simply prepared, organic foods. It’s important to know where your food comes from.”

Here at our Co-op, you will find Bionaturae olive oil, balsamic vinegar, many different kinds of pasta (both packaged and in bulk), tomato products, fruit spreads, and nectars!

November 25, 2016

Spotlight on Badger

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).

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 & ecology center — *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 — *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!

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.

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:

November 10, 2016

Spotlight on Elmer Farm

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!

October 27, 2016

Spotlight on Scott Farm

We’re casting our Co-op Spotlight on Scott Farm this week to shed a little light on the work they’re doing to preserve heirloom and unusual apples on their 571-acre land trust in Southern Vermont. All of their organic apples and quince are 20% off for member-owners this week! Read on to learn more about this unique organic orchard and its rich history:

Scott Farm Orchard is a 571-acre gem located in the rolling hills of Dummerston, VT. The orchard is home to over 120 varieties of heirloom and unusual apples. The farm itself is something of an heirloom, settled in 1791 by Rufus Scott. The orchards were planted in 1915, and in 1995 Scott Farm was gifted to the non-profit historic preservation organization Landmark Trust USA.

The renowned apple maestro, Ezekiel “Zeke” Goodband, took over the management of the orchard in 2001. His search for old varieties has taken him to abandoned orchards throughout New England and as far as Kazakhstan, the birthplace of apples. A long time ago, Zeke learned that the less he sprayed the orchard, the less he had to spray. Zeke’s formal educational training was in the field of ecology and he realized early in his orcharding career that if he respected the orchard as an ecosystem there were fewer “pest” problems.

Their goal at Scott Farm has been to enhance the biodiversity of the orchard ecosystem – the more complex the ecosystem, the more stable it becomes, minimizing the potential for significant pest explosions. They have moved beyond organic into what they refer to as ecologically grown fruit. Scott Farm produces 120 varieties of ecologically grown apples – with beautifully poetic names such as Roxbury Russet, Belle de Boskoop, and Cox’s Orange Pippin, along with unusual apples like Winter Banana and Hidden Rose. Other fine fruits include quince, gooseberries, medlars, Asian pears, plums, elderberries, table grapes, pears, blueberries, nectarines. The apples and quince can be found at the Co-op, and the remaining fruits are sold directly through the orchard’s Farm Market which is open every day at 707 Kipling Road, Dummerston, Vermont from Labor Day to the day before Thanksgiving. Over 75% of the Scott Farm crop stays in Vermont!

Visit their web page to learn more, and don’t miss these fantastic recipes!

October 20, 2016

Spotlight on Lotus Foods

We’re casting our Co-op spotlight on Lotus Foods this week to bring awareness to their grassroots rice revolution that is helping to bring sustainably grown, organic, and non-GMO rice to your dinner table! All of their products are 20% off for member-owners this week. Read on to learn more about the groundbreaking agricultural practices that are making this possible, and the impact that it’s having in rice-growing parts of the world:

Lotus Foods was founded in 1995 with the intent and vision to support sustainable global agriculture by promoting the production of traditional heirloom rice varieties, many of which may otherwise be extinct, while enabling the small family rice farmer to earn an honorable living. They learned that up to one-third of the planet’s annual renewable supply of fresh water is used to irrigate rice and recognized that this practice is not sustainable. These wasteful agricultural methods are depleting our water resources faster than they are being recharged, creating water scarcity. For this reason, in 2008, Lotus Foods committed to partnering with small-scale farmers who radically changed how they grow rice, using less to produce more.

Lotus Foods feels strongly that sustainability is premised on an ethical framework that includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, and a culture of peace. They believe that eradicating poverty and promoting social and economic justice must begin with agriculture and must be accomplished in a way that protects and restores the natural resources on which all life depends. At the crux of this challenge is rice, which provides a source of living to more than two billion people, most earning less than $200 per year.

A Grassroots Rice Revolution

More Crop Per Drop is how Lotus Foods refers to their rice grown using the System of Rice Intensification (SRI). SRI is a not a new seed or input, but rather a different way of cultivating rice that enables small-scale farmers to double and triple their yields while using 80-90% less seed, 50% less water, and less or no chemical inputs. That’s revolutionary!

Why is SRI so Important?

This unique agricultural method addresses some of the most important challenges we face this century – namely to feed several billion more people with dwindling land and water resources and without further degrading the planet’s environment. SRI has been largely grassroots driven, fueled by marginalized male & female farmers and the non-profit organizations (NGOs) who advocate for their welfare, like Oxfam, Africare, WWF and many dedicated local NGOs and individuals. The reason these farmers are so excited about SRI is because it represents an opportunity for more food, more money, better health, and more options – in short, for a way out of poverty.

Lotus Foods sees SRI as a logical extension of their mission. They offer six exceptional SRI-grown rices, and call them More Crop Per Drop to bring to special attention to water as a diminishing resource. Fully one-quarter to one-third of the planet’s annual freshwater supplies are used to irrigate and grow the global rice crop. And in Asia, where most rice is grown and eaten, about 84% of water withdrawal is for agriculture, mostly for irrigating rice. Water scarcity is having an increasingly significant impact on agriculture. According to the WWF, “The SRI method for growing rice could save hundreds of billions of cubic metres of water while increasing food security.” Check out this cool video from the Better U Foundation to learn more about SRI:

What about Organic Certification, Fair Trade Certification & Non-GMO Verification?

Most of their rices are already certified organic, while others are in the process of becoming certified, and still others are working to help develop a certifying program in their country of origin. These organic and transitional rices are grown without the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, or ionizing radiation. Their rices are 100% fair-trade certified and non-GMO verified. Lotus Foods has also been B-Corp certified since February of 2012. B corporations are legally obligated to consider the impact of their decisions on their employees, suppliers, community, consumers, and their environment. Lotus Foods shares the conviction that we can change the world for the better with how we choose to do business.

At the Co-op, you’ll find several varieties of Lotus Foods rice in our bulk department, and in the grocery department you’ll find their packaged rice and also their delicious rice ramen noodles. Visit their website for excellent tips and recipes!

September 29, 2016

Spotlight on Four Pillars Farm

We casting our Co-op Spotlight this week on Four Pillars farm of Whiting, Vermont. This beautiful organic farm provides our Co-op with an abundant array of local produce including baby spinach, baby arugula, baby kale, mesclun, Brussels sprouts, juicing greens, red & yellow onions, sweet onions, sweet peppers, daikon & watermelon radishes, butternut & spaghetti squash, and purple potatoes. Wow! And they’re all 20% off for member-owners this week! Read on to learn more about this gem nestled in the fertile valley of Addison County.

Four Pillars Farm is a certified organic vegetable farm set in the beautiful, fertile rolling hills of southern Addison county. Their mission is to provide healthy , top quality produce, to grow better not bigger, to protect and build the fertility and biological diversity on their land and build relationships with their community partners by encouraging them to come and see how their food is being grown.

Farmer-owner Peter Cousineau is committed to the use of growing practices that go beyond sustainable to regenerative. He incorporates permaculture principles into his farming methods to help recycle nutrients in the soil, promote water retention, and prevent soil degradation. He has also worked to increase beneficial insect populations on the farm and has remineralized the soil to bring back the 70+ trace minerals that most veggies are missing these days due to soil-degrading farming practices.

Another permaculture principle evident in Cousineau’s practices is the concept of people care. One example includes an annual event where he invites employees from our Co-op and other neighboring Co-ops that sell his produce to visit the farm, take a tour, and enjoy a farm-to-table meal that he prepared. This annual gathering is not only an opportunity to see the gorgeous farm where the produce is grown and learn more about what it takes to get the produce from seed to co-op shelf, but also provides an important opportunity to build relationships, mutual respect, and truly engage in a community partnership between producers and consumers. Below are some photos from last year’s gathering.