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Meet Community Foods Producers
Seward Co-op often welcomes Community Foods vendors into our stores. Come sample products and meet the people behind some of the best food on our shelves!
Thursday, September 26
Kickapoo Coffee, Franklin store 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
Friday, September 27
Kickapoo Coffee, Friendship store 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
Saturday, September 28
Red Barn Cheese, Friendship store 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
Atlas Provisions Popped Lotus Seeds, Friendship store 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Sunday, September 29
Atlas Provisions Popped Lotus Seeds, Franklin store 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 5
St. Paul Bagelry, Friendship store
Babas Hummus, Friendship store
St. Paul Bagelry, Franklin store
Saturday, October 19
Acure Skincare, Friendship store
Sunday, October 20
Acure Skincare, Franklin store
Sampling schedule and/or product availability may be subject to change without notice.
$4 Community Dinner
Everyone is welcome to Seward Co-op’s first ever Community Dinner on Thursday, July 25, hosted by the Franklin and Friendship stores.
Join us 4-7 p.m. for a $4 wholesome, picnic-style dinner (vegan and made without gluten), live music and activities. Learn about the upcoming Seward Co-op Board of Directors election. Sample from Community Foods vendors and enter a raffle to win Seward Co-op gift cards. We’ll have drinks and desserts available for purchase, too.
The $4 Community Dinner will include three vegan and made-without-gluten salads. We’ll have special deals on drinks and desserts, too! The $4 meal includes:
•Tomato Cucumber Salad
•Kale Sweet Potato Salad
•Summer Vegetable and Chickpeas Salad with Pesto
We’ll have add-ons— like drinks and $1 cookies—in addition to hot bar items like meat.
Seward Co-op’s Board of Directors will be at the event to answer all of your board-related questions. The board is currently seeking candidates for the 2019 board election. Click here to learn more about the board election and how you can apply to be a candidate on our website. To apply, attendance is required at a board meeting this summer July 30 or Aug. 27.
Visit Seward Co-op’s Facebook page to reply to the event and follow us on social to stay in the loop. See you at the co-op!
Franklin store:
2823 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55406
Friendship store:
317 E. 38th St., Minneapolis, MN 55409
*while supplies last, seating may be limited
View Now: Everyday East African Meals
Nourish // East African Cooking from Seward Co-op on Vimeo.
Shegitu Kebede filled her house with the smells of Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisine. She hoped her children would fall in love with cooking. “You’re passing a tradition,” said Shegitu, a former community activist, restaurant owner, and longtime Seward Co-op shopper and class instructor. She moved to Minneapolis in the 1990s as a refugee from Ethiopia and raised her family in the Seward neighborhood. “The Franklin co-op was our everyday store. Now my daughter is a grownup and she works here.”
Shegitu’s recipes have been a pillar of Seward Co-op’s Nourish program for years. Shoppers will often find them on the recipe racks in stores. Shegitu and her daughter, Seward Co-op employee Asnat Ghebremedhin, are working together to reach more Seward Co-op shoppers with tips on eating well on every budget. “I always say that as long as you eat, and we all do eat, why don’t you feed yourself a good meal that you’ll be so proud to prepare?” Shegitu said.
The mother-daughter team is offering Nourish cooking lessons through an online video series. Nourish is a Seward Co-op program offering a needs-based discount, food and wellness staples at a low price every day, recipes, and classes. Shegitu and Asnat cook beef tibs, as well as gomen (greens) and keysir (beets and potatoes) using Nourish recipes— meals that can feed four for $15 or less. The dishes can be eaten on their own or served with injera, rice or pita. Seward Co-op offers injera every day at the Franklin store and on Fridays at the Friendship store.
“All of the dishes are a really good introduction to Ethiopian and Eritrean cuisine,” Asnat said. “Beef tibs is a staple. We’d go to the co-op and get our fresh meat and our fresh vegetables and make this dish for us. It’s just an everyday meal.”
Food for Fuel
Shegitu said people eat food for a purpose in East Africa. Ingredients like garlic and ginger do more than add flavor. They’re a way to support your body. Shegitu adds flax to her food and drinks—4 tablespoons a day—to promote hair, skin, joint and digestive health. First, she roasts the raw flax seeds in a pan. Then “when I have a meal, I just grind it and use about two tablespoons over a meal or over my latte. I just throw it in my coffee and drink it.”
Watch Videos
Follow Seward Co-op on YouTube and Vimeo for videos with Shegitu and Asnat as they prepare Nourish recipes that Shegitu developed.
Sign Up for Nourish Classes
Learn basic from-scratch cooking tips and enjoy a meal at our Nourish classes. Healthy East African Cooking is sold out, but a waiting list is open. Register for Nourish 101: Tempeh Tacos here. Learn more about the Nourish program, which includes a recipes, needs-based discounts, and a staples list, here.
Meet Seafood Producers Cooperative
Seward Co-op is partnering with Seafood Producers Cooperative to bring even more sustainable fish to our Meat and Seafood case. The fish are caught one by one through hook-and-line methods and chilled within minutes right on the boat.
“We’re one of the last small-boat, hook-and-line fishing fleet in the North Pacific,” said Caven Pfeiffer, a fisherperson-owner of the worker co-op with offices in Washington state. “Our Sitka harbor, where the majority of boats are co-op members, is home to over 600 trollers and longliners who fish the Gulf of Alaska. Nowhere else, including both coasts, are there this many hook-and-line fishermen that use traditional methods of low-impact fishing.”
In 1944, a group of halibut fishermen started a company that they owned to deliver high-quality fish from ocean to market and to safeguard the fairest price for their work. More than 70 years later, Seafood Producers Cooperative (SPC) is fighting to survive as the modern seafood distribution system keeps fisherpeople from a fair price for their catch and seafood fraud runs rampant.
“Strengthening the cooperative economy? Check. Sourcing wild caught Alaskan fish from one of the most sustainable methods available? Check. Bringing in high quality, delicious Coho, Keta, and Halibut for co-op owners and shoppers? Check. This was a win-win-win opportunity and we’re thrilled to be able to offer their products.”
—Roderick McCulloch, Seward Co-op’s fresh food merchandising coordinator
A direct relationship between fisherperson and Seward Co-op promotes transparency and traceability in the supply chain. SPC’s Alaska fisherpeople will personally deliver products and offer educational opportunities at Seward Co-op stores. To be able to work directly with SPC means Seward Co-op is able to offer their extremely high-quality wild caught fish at very competitive prices,” said Roderick McCulloch, Seward Co-op’s fresh food merchandising coordinator.
“This is one of those prime examples of how cooperative economics creates mutually beneficial outcomes. Seward strives to support sustainable meat and seafood production; to be able to do so through a co-op-to-co-op connection was a clear choice. ”
Seafood Producers Cooperative is a small-scale, sustainable and cooperative Community Foods producer. Find their fish at the meat and seafood counter at both stores.
Contact Us
East Phillips Indoor Urban Farm upcoming meeting
The East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) continues an effort to secure land for an indoor urban farm project that would bring affordable housing, urban food production, a coffee shop and a bicycle shop to the small southside neighborhood.
The project would be part of the Hiawatha Campus expansion. The city of Minneapolis is planning to relocate and consolidate the Public Works Water Distribution Maintenance and Meter Shop operation from three sites to a centrally located facility, replacing the existing Water Distribution facility. Learn more on the city’s website.
EPNI is encouraging supporters to show up—with signs—to upcoming meetings of the Hiawatha Advisory Committee. It started as a 7.5-acres project when EPNI was negotiating the purchase of the site in 2015—and EPNI continues to hope to secure at least 2 acres for a sustainable urban farm project and save the building on the site from demolition.
Ways to Show Support
EPNI is asking for support at a community meeting Monday, June 17, at 6 p.m. at the East Phillips Park Gym, 2307 17th Ave. S., Minneapolis. Dinner will be served.
Sign a petition in support of East Phillips community plan for green jobs and green infrastructure.
The EPNI is asking folks that live in Ward 1, Ward 3 and Ward 4 to contact their councilperson and ask them to support the two-acre East Phillips Community Vision.
Read and share this feature story by City Pages.
Follow the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute on Facebook to stay up to date on news and opportunities to show support.