Blue Fruit Farm
This year we began working directly with Blue Fruit Farm (Winona, Minn.) to bring us a selection of berries and fruits unavailable elsewhere on the market. Earlier this season, they brought us black currants and, in the next few weeks, we will be receiving a few deliveries of aronia berries and elderberries.
Native to North America, the aronia berry (chokeberry) is the most recent antioxidant rich superberry to create a stir. Higher in polyphenolic compounds and anthocyanin than blueberries or cranberries, the aronia berry has become one of the highest ranked foods for its health benefits.
Aronia berries may be eaten raw, but cooking tempers the tartness of the berry and softens its often tough skin. Substitute aronia berries for any recipe that calls for blueberries or currants.
To make aronia berry jam, place a pound of aronia berries in a saucepan, cover with water and the juice of one lemon. Cook on medium to low heat for 20–30 minutes or until they soften. Chop up a large tart apple (try any of Hoch Orchards’ summer apples) with the skin on. Place in a separate saucepan with a little water until it cooks down. Strain out the solids through a sieve and set aside. A little at a time, add ¾ cup of sugar and stir until it is fully incorporated before adding the apple pulp (apple provides the pectin that aronia berries lack). Bring the mixture to a boil until thickened (about 15 minutes). Store in a jar and refrigerate.
Elderberries are another native North American berry. Raw elderberries are quite astringent and contain a small amount of a poisonous alkaloid. Cooking transforms the taste and destroys the harmful alkaloid. Elderberries are high in vitamins A, B, and C and are a powerful immune booster.
Blue Fruit elderberries will be sold on the stem. To remove the berries from the stem, freeze them and the berries will easily separate from the stem.
Elderberries make delicious jams and sauces. Boiled down with ginger, cloves, and cinnamon and fortified with honey, an elderberry syrup is a natural remedy for the cold and flu.
Summer Squash
About this time of year, summer squash is a production powerhouse. Each week we bring in hundreds of pounds of green zucchini, yellow squash, zephyr squash, and patty pan squash from Wisconsin Growers Cooperative (Mondovi, Wis.) and even more green zucchini from Featherstone Farm (Rushford, Minn.).
For tender, delicately flavored summer squash, select firm, unblemished, and smaller fruits (under 6 inches in length). Store unwashed in a plastic bag in the crisper for up to four days, and wash before use. Most of the nutritional value is in the skin, so avoid peeling.
Summer squash is commonly a supporting flavor and texture added to sauces (think ratatouille) or sweet quick breads or muffins. When prepared well, however, summer squash can shine as the main ingredient both cooked and raw.
For a quick poached summer squash, slice two small patty pan squash thinly and place in tin foil with a tablespoon of butter, a splash of dry white wine, a clove of crushed garlic, a few sprigs of thyme, and a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper. Close the foil and place on a grill or in the oven for 10–15 minutes or until the package is fragrant and the squash is tender but not soft.
On hot days when I am loath to either heat up the kitchen or eat warm food, I have also been enjoying a marinated zucchini salad using a mixture of small green zucchini and yellow (or zephyr) squash. Using a peeler, create thin slices of the squash, salt layer by layer, and set aside for 15–20 minutes. In the meantime, mix three tablespoons olive oil, three tablespoons lemon juice, and a clove or two of crushed garlic. Rinse the zucchini and drain excess moisture. Add the dressing and allow to marinate for a few hours. Just before serving, toss with a mixture of chopped chives, basil, mint, and parsley; add salt and crushed red pepper to taste.
Local Peaches
This year has been an outstanding year for stone fruit all around. We have now received a few deliveries of peaches grown by Jim and Crystal Barnard on orchards in Wisconsin and Michigan, and the quality and flavor are excellent. In addition to yellow peaches, Jim has brought small amounts of donut peaches. These smaller, flat peaches tend to have thinner, less fuzzy skin with a sweeter flesh, sometimes with almond notes.
For those looking for cases for preserving, these will be available for a limited time. We are offering a case deal, but unlike other years with abundant seconds (blemished fruit), these will mostly be first-quality peaches due to the health of this year’s crop.
Store Specials |
Owner Deals |
Aug. 19 – Sept. 1 |
Sept. 2 – Sept. 15 |
P6 Breakfast Pizza, a Nourish recipe
Ingredients
1 ball (½ package) Sunrise Flour Mill frozen pizza dough, thawed
4 Schultz eggs
¼ cup Valley View milk
1 cup shredded Burnett Co-op mozzarella
3 slices Beeler’s bacon, lightly cooked and chopped
2 (approx. ½ lb.) Living Waters hydroponic vine-on tomatoes, chopped
Small handful parsley, chopped
Method
Preheat oven to 400 F and lightly grease a 13-inch pizza pan. Place thawed pizza dough in center of pan and carefully press dough around the pan, leaving a bit of extra dough around the edges to help hold in egg mixture. Whip the eggs with milk and add a dash of salt and pepper. Carefully pour mixture over crust. Top with shredded mozzarella and bacon. Place breakfast pizza in oven and bake 10–12 minutes, or until egg has set. Sprinkle with chopped tomatoes and parsley. Serve immediately. Yield: four servings
Feeds four people for under $15!
When kids (and adults!) head back to school, the disposability of our world can feel on full display: Disposable sandwich bags, tin foil, cling wrap, lunch bags, and other needless packaging for single-serve foods. This year, commit to reducing waste and lessening the impact your lunches have on the environment.
Go on a family hike and pick up trash while the weather is still warm. Talk to younger generations about reducing waste. It’s more than just finding a recycling bin. Everyone can help out throughout the week.
Plan out meals for the week. Select meals that you know your children enjoy—even better if they’ll enjoy the leftovers. A whole chicken roasted with vegetables can be leftovers for a day, then sandwiches for a day or two after that (and/or made into chicken soup).
Monbento bento boxes and accessories are sleek, colorful and incredibly useful. Kids’ bento and snack boxes come in bright colors with easy-to-open latches and interchangeable design tokens kids can use to personalize the lid. Use the classic bento for high school kids as either a one- or two-tier lunch box and divide lunch dishes with the handy cup divider (included) or sauce dishes (sold separately). Also available: a petite utensil set that fits perfectly beneath the lid so that all your lunch needs are in a compact case. Easy to throw in a school bag or brief case, these are Bisphenol A (BPA)-free, freezer safe, microwaveable, and dishwasher safe.
Seward Co-op’s Co-op Creamery Neighborhood Cafe opened Saturday, Aug. 15! Please stop by the corner of 26th and Franklin Avenues to enjoy a coffee, meal or beer. The Creamery Cafe’s hours can be found on the cafe’s Facebook page. Like us and stay up to date on Co-op Creamery Cafe news!
Find the menu on the Co-op Creamery Cafe website.
Chicken and kimchi rice bowl at the Co-op Creamery Cafe.
August is P6 Month, and P6 Month is very special to Seward Co-op.
During this time, we celebrate all our P6 producers and applaud their tremendous work in contributing to a more equitable and just food system!
You’ll only see the P6 label at co-ops because that’s what “P6” means – co-operation among co-ops, the sixth principle of cooperatives. Seward is proud to have been the first co-op grocery to carry this label and even prouder that there are now seven grocery co-ops in the national P6 program:
• Viroqua Food Co-op, Viroqua, WI
• Three Rivers Market, Knoxville, TN
• Seward Community Co-op, Minneapolis, MN
• Ozark Natural Foods, Fayetteville, AR
• Eastside Food Co-op, Minneapolis, MN
• Bloomingfoods, Bloomington, IN
• Menomonie Market Food Co-op, Menomonie, WI
For a product supplier to receive the P6 label, it must meet two of three criteria: It must be locally owned, small-scale, and/or cooperatively owned. So when you buy P6, you’re promoting small-scale farmers, local foods and goods, and cooperatives. Most of these producers are single-person operations or family-run farms with small stories that could get easily missed by busy shoppers.
Celebrate P6 producers with us all through August!
Enter Seward Co-op’s #P6plate photo contest and you could win a terrific P6 prize for P6 Month.
All through the month of August (P6 Month) we are collecting #P6Plate pictures from Seward hot bar diners like you, selecting the best, and giving away LOTS of fabulous P6 items for your creations!
1) Come to Seward Co-op for a Deli hot bar and/or salad bar meal.
2) Create an absolutely drop-dead beautiful plate of P6 Seward Co-op deli hot bar food. Yellow saffron rice with purple cabbage. Green peas popping against chicken mole. Get creative with what’s on hand! Make a face. A map. Seward Co-op’s logo. Starry Starry Night with Goddess Dressing. Express yourself.
3) Upload your finished photo to Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram — your choice! Use the hashtag #P6Plate so we’ll be sure to see your picture, and don’t forget to correctly tag Seward Co-op on your posting.
4) Members of Seward Co-op’s marketing department will choose winners based on artistic merit, color choice, originality, and creative expression. We will notify winners via social media.
If you don’t win, don’t worry. Just keep entering new #P6Plate photos (multiple entries are encouraged). We have a LOT of great P6 prizes to give away so there will be lots of winners. Prizes have been donated for the #P6Plate contest by of our favorite vendors and friends, like:
We’ll pick winners every 3 or 4 days, so check in on Seward Co-op social media to see if you’ve won. Don’t forget to follow Seward Co-op on
if you want to enter the contest. Let’s get all of Minneapolis and St. Paul creating healthy dinners with beautiful P6 food!
* Photo is an example only. Your pictures will definitely be much better than this one. Chocolate courtesy P6 Company Equal Exchange Co-op.
Seward Co-op today issued a voluntary recall of Bulk Commodity Peanut Butter (PLU 2301), located in the Bulk Aisle, due to a piece of plastic found in the peanut butter grinding machine. No illnesses or injury have been associated with this product.
All peanut butter was removed from the grinder on Saturday, July 25. This recalled product was on sale for $3.99 per pound, regular price $6.19 per pound. Affected product may have been purchased between Wednesday, July 15, 2015 (when the machine was last serviced) through Saturday, July 25, 2015.
If you purchased the above product during that time, do not consume. Recalled products will be fully refunded at our Customer Service desk.
The co-op is also sending an email to all members who have purchased this item alerting them of the situation. (Customers who wish to be contacted via email about recalls should make sure we have their up-to-date contact information. Sign up here, on the left under “e-newsletter.”)
Since starting the Friendship store project more than two years ago, we have learned a tremendous amount as an organization. We have had significant discussion about what we mean when we say that the co-op has “equitable economic relationships.” This discussion has led the co-op to strive for greater inclusivity. In May we decided to create a position to focus on this effort. We are happy to announce that in July, LaDonna Sanders-Redmond (formerly Education & Outreach Specialist for the Friendship store) accepted the position of Diversity & Community Engagement Manager. LaDonna will work with all stakeholders to focus on how we can accomplish our goal of being a more diverse and inclusive workplace and cooperative.
LaDonna’s new position will create a platform through which to share these insights with others outside of Seward Co-op. This will include the broader Twin Cities and cooperative communities and others interested in how cooperatives can be used to further racial and economic equity. The next few months will be a time of tremendous change for the co-op. The Creamery will open imminently and the Friendship store is around the corner. We will be welcoming nearly 100 new employees to help us operate these two businesses. If you know someone who is looking for a great place to work, check our job boards or website, or attend our job fair on Saturday, Aug. 15, at Sabathani Community Center (310 E. 38th St.). We will do on-the-spot interviews to help us reach our hiring goals.
LaDonna says she is excited about her new position. “In this new capacity, I can combine my skills of being an effective communicator with my passion for food and my commitment to racial and economic equity,” she said. “I hope to facilitate a deeper connection between co-ops and communities of color that enhances the resiliency of communities.”
This summer, Nourish celebrates its first anniversary. A year ago, Seward Co-op launched the Nourish program as a way to provide greater access to the products and services we offer. We recognize that shopping for healthful and affordable food can be challenging. This is why, in conjunction with the introduction of Nourish, we increased our needs-based discount last year from 5% to 10%.
We do not want financial need to be a barrier to shopping at Seward Co-op. At the same time, we have to be conscious of maintaining the co-op’s financial health. When deciding how much to increase the discount, we evaluated the impact that this change would have on our pre-distribution net income (PDNI). We have a goal of accomplishing at least 3% PDNI so that we have enough to issue a patronage refund to our owners. For every $100 of discount sales, we lost $2 when the needs-based discount was 5%. Moving it to 10% increased that loss to $7.
When the discount was 5%, we determined that for every $100 dollars of discounted sales, we needed $515 of regular priced sales to make up for these losses in order to maintain 3% PDNI; at 10%, it became $1,031. There are those who think we should raise our discount to 20%. If we were to do that, the co-op would lose $17 on every $100 of discount sales, which would require an additional $2,062 in sales. This table breaks down how this works.
Since the introduction of Nourish last year, the co-op has sold $1,582,854 in Nourish products and given $209,787 in needs-based discounts. We believe the current 10% discount rate strikes an appropriate balance between providing affordable options in the community, providing an appropriate patronage refund to owners, and maintaining the financial health of the co-op.
In addition to increasing our discount, we also used the Nourish program to more proactively promote the payment options we have for ownership. In addition to the one-time payment of $75, we offer a partial payment and a needs-based option. Shoppers who have financial need can become owners with an initial investment of $15 through the needs-based ownership option. (The remaining $60 of co-op stock is accrued through patronage refund earnings.) Needs-based ownerships were started in 2013 and are available to those enrolled in Minnesota Food Assistance/Support, WIC, MinnesotaCare and Minnesota Medical Assistance, Social Security Disability or other self-identified need. Since its inception, we have welcomed 695 owners to the co-op through the needs-based ownership program.
The Nourish program also focuses heavily on education. After all, it is the fifth cooperative principle. The program helps shoppers identify Nourish items — which include some of the co-op’s most popular foods and wellness products — by using our staples list (found at Customer Service and online) as a guide. Shelf signs throughout the store also designate Nourish items, and our staff are always happy to point out Nourish options.
Cooking at home is an important component to Nourish. The recipe rack next to the Customer Service desk contains many Nourish options. Nourish recipes are an affordable way to feed four people — often for $10 or less — using ingredients available at Seward Co-op. The co-op offers a series of free Nourish classes designed around shopping the co-op and making unique dishes using Nourish ingredients. Classes teach basic scratch-cooking techniques, how to prepare recipes that feed a family of four for under $10, and how to shop the co-op. Class topics have included Simple Thanksgiving Sides, Kwanzaa Table, Cooking with Bulk Grains, and an African Heritage Cooking series.
For more information on Nourish, visit our website or pick up a Nourish brochure in the store.
