FairTrade Producer Story

By FairTrade America
Producers’ Names: Ediuti Mapunda, Osmane Badru, & Aquilina France
Location: Tanzania
Co-op names: Coffee Mahenge Amcos & KDCU
Commodity: Coffee

“The Coffee Mahenge Amcos cooperative in Tanzania decided to have a public nursery. The new plants need particular attention and are a special job to grow.

Ediuti Mapunda is one of the people in charge of this nursery. He has 8 children and joined the Mahenge cooperative in 2008. He has 1200 coffee plants in his 1 hectare land. He thinks that Fairtrade stimulates sustainable agriculture and better quality. All that makes the cooperative more visible.

Thanks to the better income, he was able to buy cattle to diversify his income. Since then, all of his children will have gone, go or will go to school.

Aquilina France joined the cooperative in 2003 after her husband passed away. She has 5 children and belongs to the cooperative board. Thanks to her participation in Fairtrade, she has a nice home--one she says which we couldn't compare to the small one where she lived before.

Osmane Badru produces white corn to diversify his production. He has 3 hectares where coffee, banana and corn are being produced. He joined the cooperative in 1992. Thanks to his participation in Fairtrade, he was able to pay school fees for his four children.”

Celebrate Co-op & Fair Trade Month with us all throughout October!

FairTrade Producer Story

By FairTrade America
Producer’s Name: Johnson Kihara
Location: Kenya
Co-op name: Gacharage Tea Factory
Commodity: Tea

“Johnson Kihara is one out of approximately 5,000 tea farmers and members of Gacharagae Tea Factory some 200 kilometres north of Nairobi in Kenya. Here the farmers own their own land, harvest and pluck their own tea and deliver it to collection centers before the tea is eventually processed into black tea in the large factory close to village of Mununga.

The factory is owned jointly by the farmers through a loan which they took in 2000 with the purpose of increasing the production, raising the value of their product and generating higher revenues through better access to an international market. In 2006, the farmers chose to certify their production according to international Fairtrade standards in order to achieve a better economic, social and environmental development within both the production and at the community level. Through recurrent inspections, standards compliance are being checked to make sure that development is moving in the right direction. However, sales of the Fairtrade certified tea is crucial – without sales, development may cease.

In 2015, Gacharage Fairtrade sales amounted to just three percent of their total production. The rest was sold as conventional tea and thus without the Fairtrade premium that every kilo of sold Fairtrade certified tea otherwise generates. Despite these low sales, Fairtrade premium through their sales amounted to almost 150,000 USD, funds that the farmers have chosen to invest in e.g. trainings on sustainable production, road improvements, electricity, water supply, new classrooms, school material, scholarships to students and a number of income generating projects.”

Celebrate Co-op & Fair Trade Month with us all throughout October!

FairTrade Spotlight: Canaan Palestine Olive Oil

FairTrade Spotlight: Canaan Palestine Olive Oil

October is Fair Trade Month, the month Canaan was founded in 2004, and the start of the olive harvest in Palestine. What began as a belief that farmers deserve dignity and fair access to markets has grown into a network of more than 2,400 farmers across 52 cooperatives, sustaining families and the fabric of Palestinian agriculture.

Fair trade in Palestine is more than a pricing model. It establishes collective infrastructure. A portion of every liter of olive oil sold contributes to village funds. These funds are controlled locally and support projects such as schools, agricultural equipment, and community development.

Since 2006, more than $1,210,000 USD has been invested back into farming villages through this system. These resources are decided by the farmers themselves, reinforcing leadership, accountability, and community-onented decision-making.

Palestinian farmers work under conditions that are far from ordinary. Access to land can be restricted and political realities create constant instability. Despite these obstacles, the harvest continues. Farmers remain rooted in their groves, 2 preserving agricultural traditions and protecting a way of life that has endured for centuries.

Fair trade strengthens this resilience. It ensuros stable markets, supports cooperative structures, and provides farmers with a platform to work collectively while maintaining individual ownership of their land.

To learn more about Canaan Palestine, visit: www.canaanpalestine.com

Celebrate Co-op & Fair Trade Month with us all throughout October!

FairTrade Producer Story

By FairTrade America
Producer’s name: Evelio Ricardo Garcia Cordoba
Location: Peru
Co-op name: Centro Café
Commodity: Coffee

“My name is Evelio Ricardo Garcia Cordoba. I am 49 years old. Since I was 10 or 12 years old, I have already started growing coffee. At that time I learned coffee production from my father. My father was a coffee farmer. We are seven brothers and sisters in the family. My siblings all studied and worked, only I stayed in agriculture. But coffee growing is going very well in everyday life, so it has done something positive for my life, in which I also raised my children. It is going well on the basis of coffee. And we belong to the cooperative Centro Café. We have been working with this cooperative since its start in 2001, and thank God it has provided us with the facilities. Many thanks also to you that we have Fairtrade.

Fairtrade has taught us what we did not know about coffee. Now we work with more technology, and the cooperative Centro Café even has engineers who are responsible for training and technical support, both for Gropal and for the Association, and they also help the partners. For example, we produce an organic fertilizer that we make ourselves. As you have seen, we have animals, from where we produce manure mixed with the pulp of the coffee, which is an everyday product of ours. We sow coffee and make our own mixtures, which are also influenced by our fertilizing. We have this situation here through tree shadows, from so many manageable shade trees, which are equilateral fruit trees, and we also have wooden trees that are useful to us. This is how we live. It is nice to protect the environment. We live a harmonious life with our family and friends who visit us.

Through Fairtrade we also benefit from lower costs. We take organic fertilizer to have a good production on our coffee plantations. And when it comes to fighting diseases, for example, there is a product that is easy to control. And because we are partners, we get it at a lower cost, for example, half the price. Even if we want to know which of our soils need fertilization, we also have a soil analysis. Such a soil analysis is worth 150. The partner sets 75 soles and 75 is paid by the cooperative, as a support of Fairtrade, and that is good for us, the farmers, to have this equipment.

In Centro Café we have a trial plot today, which is located in the Champol area, also within the Fairtrade framework. There are also some new varieties of seedlings that are newly produced and have a very good taste (good cupping coffees). So, as long as I am able, I would like to continue working as a coffee farmer and from there my children will see how it will be, but in the meantime I would like to continue growing my coffee varieties, now also with these new varieties that practically motivate us to plant.

I would like to tell them that we, as coffee farmers who have dedicated ourselves to coffee, are anxious to sell an even better one - with great care, under healthy, hygienic conditions and well-prepared coffee. Even before sowing and harvesting, we are concerned about ensuring that the beans are well shucked, fermented and dried so that they (the consumers) can enjoy our product, which we produce here.

Apart from the coffee, we also benefit from Fairtrade in the families. My wife used to work with small animals. Fairtrade helps us a lot that we have a certain economic income for the families by selling coffee, and that is good.”

Celebrate Co-op & Fair Trade Month with us all throughout October!

Where Did All The Groceries Go?

DEAR BLOOMINGFOODS OWNER-MEMBERS & SHOPPERS,

Although concerns about the overall health of the US food supply chain have mostly subsided, we are still experiencing longer-term out-of-stocks with some of your favorite brands. In an effort to keep you updated with the latest information, we’d like to share some of the primary factors that are creating these out-of-stocks. Additionally, we’d like to share a few of the brands and types of items with which we’re experiencing longer-term stocking challenges. 

The primary factors that have affected the availability of some of your favorite grocery items are:

• The initial stockpiling and panic buying led to “pipeline” shortages

• Transportation & distribution disruptions and delays

• Production and facility capacity is greatly reduced (production hours have changed, physical reconfiguration of some facilities for safer work experiences has slowed production and employee health concerns have altered shift work)

• At home cooking and eating while restaurants operate at reduced capacity results in increased consumer demand for in-store groceries

• Travel restrictions and agricultural distribution disruptions have curtailed the supplies of imported products (i.e. canned tomatoes)

• Shortage of raw materials (i.e. rice is harvested once annually and with the spike in demand, some reserves have been depleted until the next harvest in the fall.)

• Weather: the regional apple crop that we expected later this summer has been destroyed by late spring frosts

• The surplus of produce (fruits and vegetables) that would normally be sold to shuttered schools and restaurants is causing quality issues in warehouses across the country

• The whole agricultural sector is being affected by a shortage of seasonal workers

• State regulations regarding Hot Bar/Salad Bar/Buffet style services have dictated what we can and cannot offer (our Kitchen and Deli staff have implemented some creative solutions!)

These are a few of your favorite brands that are experiencing availability challenges:

• Amy’s Frozen foods

• Amy’s Canned soups

• Field Day (all categories)

• Seventh Generation cleaning supplies and paper goods

• Many varieties of tofu 

• Bob’s Red Mill

• Lundberg Family Farms rice

• Bubbies pickles (some varieties) and horseradish

• Applegate Farms frozen sausages

• Follow Your Heart Vegenaise

We are frequently communicating with representatives from our distributor, United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) and will continue to monitor product availability and do our best to provide reasonable alternatives for long-term out-of-stocks. In spite of the difficulties of this pandemic, our mission still remains the same. We will continue to do everything we can to provide healthy, high quality, sustainable, and environmentally-sound products at a fair price to our community.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. 

Sincerely,

The Bloomingfoods Team

Return of Reusable Bags

During this pandemic we have focused on continuing to provide our community with local, fair, and healthy products as safely as possible. As restrictions ease and new information arises, we will continue to modify our own safe shopping measures in response. Today we would like to provide you with an update on a changing measure -- the use of reusable shopping bags. 

Effective immediately, you can bring reusable shopping bags back into the co-op. We had been restricting their use. However, recent information released by the CDC suggests that surface to person contact is not thought to be the main way COVID-19 is spreading. This new information, combined with the negative environmental impact of using more paper bags, has prompted this change.

If you do elect to bring in reusable bags, we ask that you please plan to bag your own groceries.

We will continue to remain diligent in cleaning and sanitizing surfaces in our stores, and still highly encourage our customers to frequently wash and sanitize their hands. We also recommend wiping down your reusable bags after each use. 

Thank you again for your support and understanding.