Fruit Delivery
Q: I am interested in setting up a reoccurring delivery of fruit for the company I work at located on Madison's west side. We have approximately 20 people on site. Please let me know if you need any additional information, or how to proceed with setting this up.
A: Thanks for reaching out. Unfortunately, we do not offer a service like this at this time. If you'd like we could open a business account for you, and you could place regular orders on our ecommerce site. Due to staffing issues, that's the best I can offer you at this time. Thanks again! -Megan Minnick, Produce Category Manager
Smudging
Q: Hi, I read with interest your article on ethically sourced smudging tools and I am asking if you sell smudging sticks and can deliver to Canada. And, would you know of any ethically sourced opportunities in Canada. I am in Ontario, just outside of Toronto in Burlington where we acknowledge that the land on which we gather is part of the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit. Appreciate your time and support. I have been asked to support my clients with smudging and have studied the art but wish to do so in an ethical manner and appreciate your advice and kindness in this manner.
A: Thanks for the message. We do sell smudges in our stores, but unfortunately we do not ship products.
I would recommend contacting the wholesale vendor that we purchase Global Shaman Native American Smudges from which is Windrose Trading Co. Inc. They offer wholesale accounts and/or a list of online retailers that sell their products. I hope this helps! Be well, Sara Berg, General Merchandise Category Manager
Excess Product
Q: I called your west and central locations today, and am following up to find out about your grocery excess donation process. This would be for product nearing its use-by date that your locations wouldn't be looking to sell, so separate from website's direct Donation Request. Please let me know if there's a direct contact I can reach out to at your locations
A: We don't typically have excess groceries or prepared foods to donate, because we don't plan for surplus the way traditional grocers do. In the rare instances that we do, we contact Second Harvest Foodbank to learn whether they can use the surplus or whether there is a local pantry that could use it.
We certainly could add your contact info to the list of places department managers could recommend contacting if we have a surplus, but we do not schedule regular surplus pickups, and we cannot guarantee surplus availability.
Thank you for all the work you do to support our community and to help reduce food waste! -Best, Liz Hawley, Education and Outreach Coordinator
Bird-Friendly Coffee
Q: I do shop at the coop—have done so on and off for years—and am considering being an owner once again. I am disappointed though in that you all don't seem to carry any birdfriendly/shade grown decaf coffee. I would much prefer buying from you all and supporting the local economy while saving birds instead of going on line but i need the product to be in your store. Not just this but if part of your mission is to care about the environment—coffee plantations that aren't shade-grown bird-friendly are contributing to the decline of birds. A 50 % decline in the last few decades—that's huge! Please consider carrying more environmentally—wildlife/bird friendly brands. Thanks!
A: Thank you for your comments about us carrying bird-friendly coffee. The question of shade-grown coffees came up in the recent past and I checked in with a few of the coffee companies we work with about it. I think Equal Exchange had the most thorough response and it was insightful for me, so I am going to share it with you:
"The Shade Grown movement was born out of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and, as the name implies, the goal is to incentivize the protection of shade cover for coffee and the preservation of habitat for migratory birds.
“In coffee-growing regions, shade trees and various types of crops and plant-life are an important part of the ecosystem for birds and pollinators.
“Equal Exchange’s coffee is not certified Shade Grown or Bird Friendly. That said, we work with many producers whose coffee farms have partial or full shade. In fact, some of our partners grow their crops in biosphere reserves or cloud forests!
“While the Shade Grown and Bird Friendly certifications are appropriate for some growers, they come with costs. We don’t believe it provides sufficient additional benefits to ask our producer partners to go through this process on top of the fair trade and organic standards they are already meeting. It’s important to note that both organic and fair trade standards have environmental components that cover much of what shade-grown certification requires.
“It is also a core belief at Equal Exchange that focusing on certifications alone belies the important, transformational work that can be done in direct partnerships with farmers in a truly alternative, cooperative supply chain outside of traditional commercial avenues. For example, many of the projects funded through our Donor Advised Fund and Cooperative Development Project grants are aimed to assist farmer cooperatives in their efforts to renovate (replant) farms and increase crop diversity—all of which also increase local biodiversity."
I hope this helps illustrate the complexity of the different coffee certifications that are available and how they can overlap. Many plantation-style coffee growers grow their coffee without shade. We try our best to source coffee that is not plantation-grown, but it is hard to tell where some brands source their beans.
I appreciate you reaching out and letting us know what you are looking to buy at our stores. -Dean Kallas, Grocery Category Manager
Online In-Stock Bulk
Q: Hello—I'm sure this has been asked many times, but shoppers need a way to see what items are in-stock in the bulk sections per store online (before you get to the store). Even something showing all of the standard items available and what will be new/upcoming?
A: You can see what bulk items we currently carry at our North side store by visiting shop.willy street.coop and clicking on the “Shopping” tab. All of our e-commerce orders are filled from our North side location since that site has the widest product selection. The list of items that appears online is filtered based on what has been sold or received from the North location. It is not updated 100% real time but it does give a fairly accurate picture of the products that we are currently selling. If you are wondering whether or not a specific item is in stock, we recommend calling the store to check availability. You can reach Willy East at 608-251-6776, Willy North at 608-471-4422 or Willy West at 608-284-7800.
Over the years we have researched implementing “perpetual inventory” practices to know exactly what’s on hand at any given moment and keep coming to the conclusion that there are challenges that would make it prohibitively labor intensive for us to implement. This being said, we do often revisit conversations about product availability and how we can make this information more accessible to customers. I will talk to our IT and Communications departments to see if there are any fresh ideas! In Cooperation, Matt McHugh, Logistics Director
Digital Sign Text
Q: Please revise the elec sign message to read..."All lives matter"
A: We received your suggestion to revise our digital sign at Willy West to read "All lives matter." We have chosen to highlight that "Black lives matter" because we see daily reminders that this idea is not universally accepted, and we are doing our very small part to reaffirm it. I would agree that all lives matter; I couldn't argue otherwise! Per that statement, though, Black lives matter since they are part of "all lives." We're simply focusing on a group that is too often considered an exception to the "all lives matter" idea. -Brendon Smith, Communications Director
Storing Ginger
Q: Hello! A few issues ago in the Reader, there was a question about properly storing ginger. In addition to Megan’s tip about fridge storage, I wanted to share my favorite ginger tip: store it in the freezer! We rinse our roots and break them up into a few pieces before sticking them in the freezer. When we want to use some, we just take it out of the freezer and grate it with a microplane. No peeling necessary and no stringiness!
A: Thanks for the tip! I've never frozen ginger, but it sounds like it works really well. -Megan Minnick, Purchasing Director