Abuzz with Activity

By John Tashiro, General Manager

Happy May! How I love the reawakening of everything around us with the days getting lighter earlier, as well as getting longer and warmer. From trees budding, bees pollinating and flowers blossoming in all their glory to seeing people out and about in the community, I feel such a “buzz” in the air. In similar fashion, we are abuzz at the Co-op with seeds and plant starts, and are looking forward to more local produce throughout the growing season.

You might remember that we closed the store for one day last April to upgrade our refrigeration systems. We were able to get so many spring projects completed on that one day that we decided to plan for a “spring cleaning & training” day this year as well. The Co-op will be closed on Wednesday, May 11 to make improvements throughout the store, offer a variety of staff trainings and host a staff celebration! We look forward to seeing you on Thursday, May 12 during our regular hours of 7am to 11pm and hope you notice the difference this one day makes!

We are thrilled to have just launched our Co-op Basics program; you should notice signage throughout the store this month. This new program compliments the other weekly and monthly deals that we have in place throughout the Co-op, like the “Budget Stretchers”, “Weekly Winners”, and “Co-op Deals.” Through Co-op Basics, we are offering a large selection of items throughout the store at great values with everyday low prices. You have probably noticed that Field Day products are becoming somewhat of a “store brand” for us. Field Day products can be found in most of the categories in our grocery aisles – from beans and coconut milk, paper products and broth to peanut butter and jam, pasta and sauce, olive oil and salsa. Field Day offers a great everyday value across a variety of products for your family.

This month we also celebrate World Fair Trade Day on May 14th.  The World Fair Trade Organization, which represents over 360 member organizations across 70 countries, started this celebration in 2001 and this year’s theme is “Be an Agent for Change.” As you may know, Fair Trade is a transparent trading system that supports sustainable livelihoods primarily for small and disadvantaged producers and their communities in developing countries.  The Fair Trade system benefits producers who are most vulnerable and ensures fair prices, good working conditions, and long-term partnerships to fight against poverty and exploitation, climate change and the economic crisis.  

The City of Burlington is certainly unique with its designation as a Fair Trade Town as part of the over 1,800 Fair Trade Towns international network. Here at the Co-op, we support and offer over 280 Fair Trade items like bananas, avocados, flowers, chocolates, coffee, tea, sugar, soaps, shampoos and many others. These items have various Fair Trade certifications that guarantee your purchase helps improve the lives of several million small scale producers and their communities around the world.

Our work on the South End Co-op continues to keep us busy! Thank you to our many community members who were able to join us on Monday, April 11 and Tuesday, April 12 for our expansion presentations and feedback sessions. We had such great conversations with you and the energy in the room was palpable. If you missed the sessions, we taped Monday’s and you can watch in online here: http://www.citymarket.coop/southend. We update this webpage regularly as we gather more input and make progress, so keep checking back!

Logistics. We have begun our demolition and construction permitting process with the City. This should allow us to start site work and ground breaking over the next several months.

Design. We continue to refine the interior and exterior schematics and offerings with a continued focus on community and Member needs and fiscal responsibility. 

Community Engagement. We held two successful engagement sessions on April 11 & 12 to packed houses each night. We appreciated the opportunity to share our plans and hear your input; we’ll continue to share updates as we have them!

As always, thank you for your continued support! We are committed to serving you, our Members and the community and we look forward to seeing you at the Co-op soon.