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.