--- dyna <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Bruce, I'd love to see your little food co-op > flower in > Nordeast. But working class folks like me can't > afford their prices. > I live in the Northside and work in Nordeast- why > should I have to > drive to Robbinsdale or New Brighton to buy food at > reasonable prices?
Hey, now--I'm so working class I actually work at a food co-op in what's perceived as one of the spendiest neighborhoods in town. And I do nearly all my grocery shopping there, on my teeny little budget. Food cooperatives were started with the idea of bringing good food to people at reasonable prices, and that's still what they're about. When I was a kid on the Iron Range, the grocery store we shopped at was The Co-op (pronounced "kwap")--started in the 1930s by iron miners who wanted an alternative to "the company store," and the one I work at now is really no different--owned by the people who shop there rather than by any "outside" entity. We've got kind of a skewed view of food co-ops here in Minneapolis--where once upon a time, there were more than twenty of them, and all of them purveyors of organic and natural foods. Twenty or thirty years ago, there was a significant price difference between organic and the mega-farmed alternative. The cost of organics is much more moderate now, especially since people are beginning to realize that what you don't pay now in food costs, you may pay later in medical bills, or at least we'll all wind up paying in environmental costs--and so the demand for organics grows. My husband and I eat quite well on a pretty miniscule budget. Bulk rice is 49 cents a pound, and this month anyway, the best heirloom tomatoes around are free (in my backyard garden). If you want lessons on how to eat like royalty on next-to-no money, talk to my husband (also the local expert on fine wines under ten bucks). The prices at "big box" grocers like Cub on comparable items are consistently higher than prices on the exact same items at the Wedge, Seward, and Linden Hills Co-ops. I know because I check the prices in the Sunday circulars every week. The Eastside Co-op represents a community-driven, locally-owned, human-scale option for Central Avenue. It's growing organically in the other sense of the word. And I'm willing to bet their food will be reasonably priced to boot! Jeanne Lakso Kingfield _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
