Our advertising budget grew this year, casting a wider net. We collaborate and co-habitate with three exciting businesses at 1 Main Street - JUSTFOOD, the cupcakery and The Upstairs Kitchen. Our own marketing materials and web presence have been overhauled at generous pro-rated fees by talented folks. The Co-Op is able to pay for clerking, book keeping and social media professionals. You will always be met by a knowledgeable and friendly Beetnik at the Co-Op. 

All this chalks up to remarkable progress for a very young start-up cooperative, with a nearly all-volunteer base. We are a proud and passionate crew. Don't forget, we earned a paragraph in the New York Times in 2012. It hardly gets better than that.

Every dollar goes right back into our community. The Co-Op recently became a full member of The Neighboring Food Co-op Association www.nfca.coop. Please consider joining a few of us for the annual conference in Brattleboro in April!  We also joined NOFA (The Northeast Organic Farming Association) www.ctnofa.org, and will be attending the Winter Conference this weekend in Wilton, CT. Co-Op members are encouraged to join this always informative and delicious conference. Mention you are a Local Beet Co-Op member for a discount! A full share of The Common Ground CSA was purchased by the Co-Op to show our support for this East Haddam initiative and share in the season's bounty. Look for a profile of the founders and their community barn concept in the next newsletter. www.commongroundcsa.com

The most vital component of the Co-Op's sustainability is YOUR SHOPPERSHIP. We need to see you MORE. We might never serve all your shopping needs, even with our inventory surpassing 4,000 items, but we are fulfilling our mission of supplying the cleanest products we can find, always mindful of fair trade, fair treatment of people, animals and the planet. Our inventory has grown through YOUR requests, and we're always happy to stock what you and your family need in the convenience of Chester Village. We are thrilled to be collaborating with a farm-to-table distributor which provides the Co-Op with more and more local gems. Look for LOVE LOCAL signs, new CT beef and pork in the freezer and hydroponically grown cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce. If you are not already a member, now's the time to join so we can continue to affect our community positively. Membership payments can be made in 3 or 6 installments.  

LOVE LOCAL, but more importantly, pay attention to your food. There is a battle going on now for GMO labeling in CT. This month, a bill sponsored by State Representative Phil Miller, a member and advocate of the Local Beet Co-Op, is making its way through the legislative process. In a mass mailing this week, Mr. Miller included explanation of the GMO Labeling Bill. In a paragraph titled, "Who's Your Farmer?" he wrote, "It is suggested that we should know where our food comes from to have true food security.  In Chester, The Local Beet is providing the best in homegrown goodness..." Thanks, Phil! We appreciate all the work you are doing to educate and advocate.

I attended a meeting with Food & Water Watch strategists this week in New London and I am pretty fired up. It is IMPERATIVE that we all take simple (or complex!) action NOW to ensure our children's health. It is simple. You do have the right to know what's in your food. If you haven't already signed our in store petition, please do. In addition, you can click through the Food & Water Watch site to write a letter to legislators. Our House Speaker, Brendan Sharkey, needs to be convinced there is huge grassroots support for the GMO Labeling Bill which will hold him accountable. http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/campaigns/make-ge-labels-the-law/

Finally, I will say we have created growth out of sheer will and sweat, on a shoestring, and we are still UNDERCAPITALIZED. We do not qualify as a 501(c)(3) because we resell goods, but we are a not-for-profit associaton, as all co-ops are. We need to raise money for larger produce cases since this is our largest volume sales category. We also need more elbow room when we order so we can meet more of our customers' needs. Most importantly, we need to compensate our treasured workers with fair wages that match their qualifications.  Co-ops do build a better world. Help us build ours.

In Co-Operation,

Kim Kellogg
Acting Manager