Co-opportunity Natural Foods

As we begin the transition from Spring into Summer, we’re seeing the arrival of many new local California items in produce. Those include, but aren’t limited to:

• Zucchini
• Green Beans
• Valencia Oranges
• Asparagus
• Red Potatoes
• Yukon Potatoes

As the seasons change, that means some items will no longer be available. Apples, for example, will be coming from Chile and Argentina due to the back stock of U.S. grown apples dwindling. Click here for a full rundown of California’s seasonal produce calendar at the Co-op (pdf).

PETITION PRESIDENT OBAMA TO SUPPORT MANDATORY LABELING OF GMOs:

FDA regulations do not mandate GMO labeling of foods.  Although over 1 million people submitted comments in favor of labeling, the FDA has yet to act.

Congress’ passing of the Monsanto Rider prohibits the Department of Agriculture from stopping production of any GMO crops once they are in the ground (even if there’s evidence the crops are harmful). In essence, this means GMOs are not subject to judicial oversight as the courts are most likely to ask the USDA to halt the planting of a crop.

Fortunately, there is some Congressional momentum building behind labeling of GMOs, as evidenced by this proposed bill. We urge you to contact the President to keep the momentum going and ask that he speak out in favor of mandatory labeling  of GMOs. Please contact him at one of the following:

• Online: whitehouse.gov/contact
• Phone: 202-456-1111
• The White House
  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
  Washington, DC 20500

We have a great cause that we’re asking you to please participate in!

More info on OFI

And, we’re giving away free reusable Co-op Bags!

And, on Earth Day only, we’ll be giving away a handful (everything we have) of these gift bags from Tom’s. Ask at the membership desk for them. First come, first served!

Hello Members,

We haven’t reached our quorum for the amendment votes. If you haven’t voted, PLEASE take a moment and open the co-op email you recently received from marketing@coopportunity.com, follow the link and vote!

If you have any questions, you can email me directly at bruce@coopportunity.com)

Here is some helpful info outlining the finer points of the amendments:

RE: Amendment #1.  Some members were concerned that authorizing our co-op to sell a million shares would cause over-crowding at our current location.

Increasing the number of shares we can offer doesn’t mean we’ll have a million members—or anywhere close.

It simply means we can sign up new members for many more years. These are a million shares, not members. Each member has multiple shares. And every year members withdraw, so there is an ebb and flow.

We’ve been in business over 38 years, and it’s our goal to stay in business at least that many more. We decided on 1,000,000 simply so we didn’t have to address this issue again for a long time.

Back in 1994 we had to increase the amount as well (from the original 1976 amount).

This just gives us a lot of time before we have to revisit this issue again. But, even now, we absolutely need to raise the amount of shares we can sell—since we’re coming up on the current 100,000 limit. And, to ensure our future, we need the ability to sell new memberships. We have several hundred people withdraw their membership every year.

And I understand some of your concerns about parking and how busy the store is. Please know that we are doing all we can with our situation. We had to sign a new lease in our current location after we searched several years (with no luck) for a larger location.

Authorizing the million shares should have little affect on our current customer count or growth.

All of the amendment changes are designed to better position ourselves for growth.

We are looking at all feasible avenues of growth, while focusing on maintaining our difference in whatever form the growth takes.

This amendment won’t drastically affect the current pattern of customer count or new members in our current store.

RE: Amendment #2.  We need to position ourselves for growth and opportunities. This allows us to sell preferred shares (non-voting stock) during a capital fund drive. Many co-ops nationally use preferred shares to raise capital for expansions.

RE: Amendment #3. This is simply another way to enable our co-op to financially prepare itself for further growth. The majority of California co-ops all use the $300 level for full membership.

If we came upon an opportunity that would benefit our co-op (offsite kitchen, second store, larger store, more parking, etc.), we would use these avenues to help raise additional capital. Since we’re only one store, and don’t have a corporate headquarters to funnel money into a project, we need to rely on financing (bank loans), member loans, preferred shares and regular membership shares to raise funds.

Thank you for your support!

Come celebrate Easter Sunday at the Co-op with the return of our Easter Egg hunt! We won’t use real eggs this year, but will use toy eggs filled with edible treats, and for a few lucky egg finders, Co-op gift cards!

Details are as follows:

• Egg hunt will go from 7am-12pm (or until eggs are gone)
• We’ll hide a total of three dozen eggs throughout the store
• Limit of one egg per customer please
• Resident customer service super star, Laura, will be heading up the activities

We hope you can join us!

Update: Congrats to the winner of the grand prize! Sophia Flores!

After an exhaustive search, we have decided on an internal candidate. He’s our (now-former) Assistant Deli Manager, Julio Corea, an employee with us since 2009. We are confident that with him at the helm, our deli is headed for new and exciting developments.

A big “thank you” to all of our applicants, and everyone that encouraged friends and family to apply. We appreciate your interest and input.

The FDA is scheduled to approve genetically engineered salmon for human consumption on February 25th, 2013. This would be the first time in history that a GE animal would be approved for human consumption, setting the precedent for many more animal patents to follow (there are currently 25 other species of fish and a GE pig awaiting approval).

Furthermore, this GMO salmon will not have to be labeled as such. And while your Co-op will not carry GMO salmon, we believe that at a bare minimum, consumers should know whether the salmon they are purchasing is GMO.

Fortunately, we still have until February 25th to contact the government and speak out against this! The FDA has issued a public comment period from now until Feb. 25th on this topic, so now is the time to voice your opinion. Also, please encourage everyone you know to educate themselves on this topic and speak out about this issue now, before it is too late. You can take action by contacting the FDA, the White House, your Congressmen, Senators, and Representatives and letting them know you will not support GMO salmon. There are also many online petitions to sign and many other ways to speak out against unlabeled, GMO salmon. Please make your voice heard!

Many of you have asked us about the USDA’s recent mandate requiring raw almonds to be pasteurized. Please note that this rule does not apply to our bulk raw almonds from Yemetz Farm.

The reason for this exemption is that they are sold directly to us, which means the grower (Yemetz Farm in our case) doesn’t have to fumigate or pasteurize the almonds. When the almonds are coming directly from the farmer and he/she is the true “certified grower” and controls everything, they can continue to be raw.  In short, there is no middle man that could potentially contaminate the almonds.

The raw almond provider can’t be someone who owns the land, yet isn’t involved on the ground level and leaves outside parties to handle everything.  Furthermore, the raw almonds must come from a small farm and the almonds can’t be shipped through UPS or other freight carriers, or out of state.

For more information on the law, and what you can do to ensure more raw almonds remain available, please visit cornucopia.com.