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Tell us what you think! We want to know if we’re doing a good job or if you feel something needs attention. Let us know if there is a product you would like to see on the shelves. We can’t carry everything but we are always eager to hear what our shoppers would like to buy. If this is a special order request please include your phone number and a staff member will call you to confirm.
Sprout! Newsletter
Welcome Winter
Winter is the perfect season to rest and rejuvenate from the busy summer. However, don’t get too comfy and forget to go outside and get active from time to time. Bundle up and celebrate the magical winter season with friends or family — attend a winter celebration and break bread, suit up to build a snowman with the kids, or get in a snowball fight with your siblings while the meal is still simmering.
If you’re attending a winter celebration, chances are you’ll want to bring something thoughtful for the host. Why not stop by the co-op and browse our handcrafted, P6 gifts from small, local, and/or cooperatively owned producers? We have everything from Norfolk pines and poinsettia floral gifts to oil diffusers and essential oils. Not sure what to get? Purchase a gift card or consider giving the gift of ownership in the co-op. Talk to our Customer Service staff for more information.
Our scratch-made seasonal bakery items are made fresh daily by our team of bakers. Made with high-quality, simple ingredients, we offer something for everyone. These items are the perfect addition to any gathering.
Are you hosting this year? Pre-order your local holiday favorites in our Meat & Seafood Departments!
Cascadian Farm Cut Beans
General Mills announced a voluntary Class 1 recall involving 10 ounce bags of frozen Cascadian Farm Cut Beans produced over two days in March 2014. The recall is being issued as a precaution after one package of finished product tested positive for the presence of Listeria Monocytogenes. No related illnesses have been reported.
Affected product is not currently on the shelves at Seward Co-op; we are not currently stocking this item. We have carried 10 ounce cut beans in the past as a promotional item ($2.00 sale price; $2.79 reg. price). Other sizes and varieties of Cascadian Farm products have not been affected.
If you purchased 10 ounce bags of frozen Cascadian Farm Cut Beans between July 30, 2014 and Aug. 7, 2015 with “Better If Used By” dates of 04-10-16 or 04-11-16, please return them to Seward Co-op for a full refund.
The affected product’s UPC code is 21908-50345 and has “Better If Used By” dates of 04-10-16 and 04-11-16. Complete information from General Mills is available here or by calling 800.624.4123.
Know Our Grower: Keewaydin Farms
Know Our Grower featuring Keewaydin Farms
Keewaydin Farms, founded in 1976 by Richard and Mary Haucke, is now run by their son, Rufus Haucke (above) with help from his children Karma and Aurora (in Rufus’s lap).
Previously a dairy farm run with sustainable practices, the farm is now a MOSA-certified organic vegetable operation. Rufus and his family raise 15 acres of produce for wholesale markets and a Community Supported Agriculture program.
Located in beautiful rural Southwestern Wisconsin, Keewaydin Farms enjoys the serenity found only in the quietest places. It is a place where the scenery nourishes the soul, and the bounty of the farm nourishes the body. In these times of global markets, Keewaydin Farms is rooted in providing high quality products to its local community, because they believe these products are not only better for the planet as a whole but that people who eat locally grown products are eating healthier, better-tasting goods.
Keewaydin Farms’ Organic Rhubarb is in stock at Seward Co-op (June 2, 2015)
The Legacy of African Americans in Co-ops
February is recognized as Black History Month in the United States. Traditionally, its focus has been to celebrate the contributions of African Americans in the U.S.
Carter G. Woodson pioneered the celebration that started as out as a week in February in 1926, to its current month-long celebration. As we approach the opening of the Friendship store in Bryant neighborhood, it is important that we honor the legacy of African Americans in the co-op community.
The book Collective Courage by Jessica Gordon Nembhard documents the importance of cooperative economics in the African American community. In that book, Dr. Nembhard covers decades of experiences that African Americans have had with cooperative economics.
Customers at Minnesota’s Credjafawn Co-op in the predominantly African-American Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul, circa 1950.
Dr. Nembhard’s book is a continuation of the 1907 survey of African American cooperative efforts written by W.E.B. Du Bois. Du Bois discussed how African Americans used racial solidarity and economic cooperation in the face of discrimination and marginalization.
According to Dr. Nembhard, Du Bois differentiated cooperative economics from Black capitalism or buying Black. Du Bois focused on a “Black group economy” to insulate Blacks from continued segregation and marginalization.
To achieve that goal, Du Bois organized the Negro Cooperative Guild in 1918 with the idea of advancing cooperation among Black people. In attendance at the two-day conference were 12 men from seven states.
Du Bois is most widely known for his statement regarding race relations in the U.S. In his book, The Souls of Black Folk, he famously noted that “the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line.”
Du Bois is noted for accurately describing the problems of race in America. Yet, his work to solve the problem of the color line is often ignored. Du Bois promoted economic cooperation as the solution to the issues of the “color line.”
Du Bois said that “we unwittingly stand at the crossroads—should we go the way of capitalism and try to become individually rich as capitalists, or should we go the way of cooperatives and economic cooperation where we and our whole community could be rich together?”
In this instance, Du Bois believed that economic cooperation could provide more than providers of goods or services, but also a philosophy or blueprint by which communities could be built or rebuilt.
The guild’s mission was to encourage the study of consumer cooperatives and their methods, support the development of cooperative stores, and form a technical assistance committee.
As a result of the meeting of the guild, in 1919, the Memphis group incorporated as the Citizens’ Co-operative Stores to operate cooperative meat markets. The venture was very popular. The cooperative sold double the amount of the original shares they offered, and members could buy shares in installments.
Within a few months, five stores were in operation in Memphis, serving about 75,000 people. The members of the local guilds associated with each store met monthly to study cooperatives and discuss issues. The cooperative planned to own its own buildings and a cooperative warehouse.
The use of cooperative economics to address racial discrimination in the market place and provide a pathway to rebuild communities is an important lesson that has relevance today.
Since the 1800s, Minnesota food co-operatives have been at the center of issues that juxtapose the pursuit of justice issues against fair market opportunity. This started with the Finnish who arrived in Northern Minnesota, Scandinavian farmers who were taking bottom-barrel prices from railroad barons, extended into the 1950s when Black Minnesotans organized the Credjafawn Co-op to benefit their community in St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood. The co-ops were at the center of these issues in the 1970s, too, wherein the “Co-op Wars” erupted over social justice issues versus profitability.
We know that these are false dichotomies. A single choice among fairness, equity, or justice is not an option. Justice in the marketplace is not an option. Economic exploitation is not a part of the model of sustainability, and neither is economic isolation. The opportunity to share the co-operative model is at hand.
During the Co-op Wars of the ’70s, the clash between the Maoist “Co-op Organization” and the Bryant/Central Food Co-op was not just about food. The clash was about the false dichotomies: Serving poor people OR serving great food. Dismantling the notion that “cheap” food is sustainable is hard.
However, we now know that cheap food is built on cheap labor. When people are not paid fairly, we perpetuate the same system of inequality that we are trying to end. Today’s food co-ops must accomplish both: Make a commitment to end poverty by supporting economic models that are fair, just, and healthy and deliver healthful food to its owners.
The Seward Co-op’s Friendship store in a Bryant neighborhood will be an opportunity to become a part of the fabric of the community that honors this legacy by bridging the gap between the promise of cooperatives of the past and an economically just future.
Would you like to discuss these ideas further? Join LaDonna for the Seward Co-op Book Club this month —Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice
Isuroon: Mpls Needs a Halal Food Shelf
UPDATE: Since this article was posted, Isuroon Ethnic Food Shelf received $18,558.25 in SEED donations from Seward shoppers for the month of December 2014. This is a new record for SEED donations at Seward Co-op.
Imagine emigrating to a faraway nation. The culture, the alphabet, the weather, and everything you encounter on a daily level is completely alien to you.
Strangest of all, the food is so foreign that you can’t eat it. It’s meat (maybe?) but you’re not even sure what animal it’s from. Regardless, you have no money to buy it, even if it was something you could eat. You’re a complete stranger, stranded, poor, and hungry.
New Minnesotans from East Africa encounter this daily, according to newly formed non-profit Isuroon in Minneapolis. Often, newly arrived immigrants too poor to shop aren’t able to find food shelves offering food that their religious views will allow them to eat. The food they need must be “halal” – that is, permissible for Muslims to eat or drink under Islamic law. For this reason, Isuroon Executive Director Fartun Weli said in comments to Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin recently (video via The Uptake), the Muslim immigrant community in Minneapolis needs an ethnic food shelf. In addition to halal food, such a food shelf would need offer whole grain, whole foods, and limit the processed foods available to customers. Somali elders aren’t familiar with or are simply baffled by processed food, so they won’t eat it. (Imagine a Somali elder encountering Spam in a food shelf. Free, yes, but it’s hard for newcomers to understand what Spam even is.)
Here’s the main problem according to Fartun and Isuroon: No food shelves in Minneapolis offer halal foods.
Isuroon’s mission is to create such a food shelf, but securing funding has been difficult: The non-profit needs $150,000 just to start work. When Isuroon came to Seward Co-op to apply as a SEED recipient, Fartun told us that a donation from the co-op’s SEED program would not only help the “bottom line,” it would help to legitimize Isuroon as a viable non-profit, too. Seward’s December donation will probably be the largest and primary funding for Isuroon’s food shelf to date.
“Isuroon” is a Somali word that means “woman taking care of herself,” and while Isuroon’s webpage says they are a group dedicated women’s health and wellness, they see the entire Somali community in Minneapolis as part of their mission, too. Imam Hassan Mohamud, a legal advocate for Isuroon, tells the story that Mohammed had to give advice to his community but the community was angry and wouldn’t listen to him. He spoke to his wife and asked, “What should I do?” His wife gave him advice which he followed and and the community opened up and began to listen to Mohammed.
“This is the importance of the woman in our community,” he said. (Quote via The Uptake video.)
During this month of so many holidays, sharing, and generosity, Seward shoppers have an opportunity to make a huge impact through SEED donations for Insuroon. All of the food shelves to whom Seward donates SEED money do crucial work, but this is an opportunity for Seward shoppers to help create something that doesn’t exist, something that some of our new Somali neighbors desperately need.
So remember in December….round up at the register!
Fartun Weli and Christine Dietsche tabling at Seward Co-op.
(Photo courtesy Isuroon)