Insider Jargon
Q: When editing the Reader, can you watch out for your colleagues using insider jargon? For example, we customer/owners think of the three Co-op locations as the stores, not “the retails.” Thanks!
A: Yes! Thank you for pointing that out. I try to be diligent about that when editing, but this one slipped by. Thanks! -Liz Wermcrantz, Editor
Self Care
Q: THANK YOU for writing the cover story "Self Care" in the October 2020 issue of the Reader. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article and agreed with most every point that was made! As someone who is a self proclaimed "health freak" I am always looking for ways to increase my health and happiness. I used to focus solely on food and now am understanding how important so many other areas are in overall health such as social connection, joy, sense of community, time spent outdoors, etc. All of these areas your article covered in a an easy to understand yet comprehensive fashion. I have already set aside my issue of The Reader to share with others. We're all here together!
A: Yay!!! That makes me so happy to hear. I'm glad it was useful to you. I learned a lot from it too. Andy is a great and thoughtful writer. I'll pass along your feedback to him. I'm sure it'll make his day, as it did mine. Take care! -Liz Wermcrantz, Editor
Product placement
Q: I purchase a lot of non dairy yogurt and am legally blind. I know my way around the store well enough, but the new placement caused me to accidentally purchase a number of containers of the dairy Siggi’s brand rather than the coconut milk version, due to similar packaging. I guess it also explains why I couldn't find any Forager cashewgurt today. Can you maybe improve your signage or something to make it more clear where the non dairy section is?
A: I am writing in regard to your recent comment about the new placement for non-dairy yogurts at Willy East. Thank you for taking the time to submit your feedback.
I am sorry to hear about you getting the wrong yogurt on your last shopping trip with us. I'll review our signage regarding this movement, I know it was a bit last minute. I'll also check-in with our Communications department about potentially getting some signage for the door itself.
Thank you again for mentioning this! -Patrick Humiston, Grocery Manager—East
Owner sales
Q: Can you put a couple of weeks of owner reward flyers on the website? I make a lot of decisions based on what's on sale. These days, I'm doing all my grocery shopping online with the pick-up option. Because of the delay between shopping and being able to pick up (while I'm writing this, it's a 7 day delay), I can't see what's going to be on sale. That means that I need to place my order, and then go back in, in a few days, and make changes and email those changes to you. It's not a particularly convenient system for you or for me.
A: Thanks for your suggestion! I can certainly understand wanting to plan ahead in your shopping, especially with the pandemic in effect! Given volatility of pricing and supply—particularly of produce items, and especially during COVID—we aren't able to confirm sale pricing much farther ahead of time than we are already doing. If we are able to make any changes to better settle sale pricing, we will re-examine our process to see if we can give Owners more notice about upcoming sales. Thanks for shopping at the Co-op; take care and be well! -Brendon Smith, Communications Director
Curbside pick-up
Q: I really appreciate the option to get curbside pick-up. Is there a way (such as a surcharge) to shorten the time between placing an order and pick-up? Thanks.
A: Thanks for your question about wait times for curbside pickups. The time-consuming part of shopping for other people is just that—the shopping! We have a process of selecting the products on a customer's order and then a second process of auditing those selections for accuracy, adjusting weights, and voiding out-of-stock items from the order. Finally, we package up the order in bags and boxes. All in all, it takes quite some time. Given that, and the variability of orders (we often get orders over $500, they take a lot of effort!), we only offer a certain number of pickup and delivery "slots" each day. We can only offer as many "slots" as we have staff scheduled to work in our eCommerce operation that day. Added charges, as you suggest, won't immediately impact that capacity—having more trained staff will!
We are working on hiring more folks into our eCommerce department. Much of our team has been made up of staffers from other departments and sites that were closed down due to the health and safety policies that the County implemented early in the pandemic. As those staffers have been recalled back to their home departments, we've been in a position of having to temporarily reduce our capacity. Demand for the service is understandably rising, as well. The convergence of these two points is what you're experiencing with multiple day wait times between your order and your pickup. Once we have some additional staffers in and trained, we'll be able to offer more "slots" for you to choose from, and wait times for orders should go down. -Patrick Schroeder, eCommerce Manager
Price of cauliflower
Q: I am a bit embarrassed to ask, but what explains the price of cauliflower? I purchased one head a couple of months ago and was surprised it cost 14 USD. I forgot to check the price per pound today and was craving for this vegetable: this time it cost 18 USD. I will soon use cauliflower as a unit of measurement to determine how much I am spending. :)
More seriously, I was wondering why it is so expensive: is it because of poor yields this year? because of Covid? or has this vegetable always been pricey without me realizing it?
A: Thanks for the message! I'm sorry about this! It's true that organic cauliflower and broccoli both have been pretty spendy recently. Organic cauliflower has been running at $3.79/lb, and broccoli is even more expensive—$4.99/lb from California. That $4.99/lb price actually represents a reduced margin for us, if we were using our regular margin, the broccoli price would be closer to $5.49/lb, but we believe that's just too much for our customers to bear.
The biggest reason for these high prices for products coming from California are the wildfires that have ravaged that state, compounded by COVID-19 issues, and also that this tends to be a time of year when these types of crops are in shorter supply as farms transition from summer growing regions to more southerly winter growing regions. Through most of September, we were somewhat insulated from these things since we were able to rely heavily on our local veggie supply, but as that supply winds down, I would anticipate that we'll see some higher California prices for a bit, until they are able to recover from the issues caused by wildfires.
It's also true that sometimes the heads of organic cauliflower are quite large. If you'd like, we can always cut one in half for you so that you can quench your organic cauliflower craving without such a high bill.
Thanks so much! -Megan Minnick, Purchasing Director
Covid precautions
Q: It’s been a pleasure to be a coop member for over 15 years. The Co-op has been my main source of groceries, and I’m there several times a week. I even chose live across the street partly due it’s proximity. This is the first time I have been compelled to express an opinion.
During COVID I have been impressed with the steps taken to ensure customer and employee safety, and general openness in regards to announcing changes, employee infections, etc. I felt the Co-op led the way in safety restriction when the COVID cases first rose in February and March.
However, I was at Willy East on Sunday 10/4 around 5pm and there were a number of things I noticed that seemed to have changed.
First it seemed many more customers were being allowed in at a time. I don’t know what the limit is, if it had been increased due to Public Health suggestions, but to me it seemed much too crowded, and impossible to maintain six feet of distance at almost any time. Add to the fact, and possibly a bigger problem is that many customers are just ignoring social distancing guidelines, even as announcements are consistently made to maintain six feet of distance. I don’t know what can be done about this... maybe more frequent announcements, more signage, maybe even vocal reminders to customers that are clearly not maintaining six feet distance.
Secondly, I was disappointed to see that the bulk section was opened up, (per Public Health Guidelines), since this seems to be an area of high contact.
Thirdly, and not so recently, I was disappointed that carts were no longer being disinfected by staff. I understand that this is probably a drain on resources, but as a member it was very much appreciated.
Regardless of what the Public Health Guidelines are, cases in Wisconsin have dramatically increased over the past month and are still going up. So it seems odd timing to relax restrictions. Because of this rise in cases I have become more vigilant about social distancing. And personally I didn’t feel safe at the coop on Sunday. I might feel safer about getting deliveries from Whole Foods until there is either stronger restrictions put in place at the coop to ensure customer and employee safety, or until the number of COVID cases in Dane County drop dramatically.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
A: Thanks for sharing all your feedback. All stores are still currently being held to below 25% capacity. Sometimes the stores feel crowded not so much because of the number of people throughout the store, but because many people happen to be in the same area of the store. I can’t say for certain whether that was your experience, but regardless, stores are still limiting capacity strictly. As for making the in-store announcements and signage, both require us to find that sweet spot between making sure they are timed and spaced properly to be noticed, and that there aren’t so many that it’s hard to focus on them. The best way to make sure that people know that they are standing too close to you or others, is, as you mentioned, to let them know verbally, and all of us on Co-op staff do our level best to be direct with each other and customers when we notice distance needs to be better kept.
We did open the parts of our bulk department that have dispensers with spouts or gravity levers as Public Health did allow, as this is a section of the store that many of our customers greatly missed. Re-opening the parts of the bulk aisle we felt we were able to open did come with a thorough review of our cleaning procedures and some changes both to the frequency and ways we clean that area and its high-touch points.
We started cleaning the carts back in spring because we were unable to secure an adequate supply of cleaning wipes for customers to use to wipe handles down on their own, and at the time, there wasn’t great information about surface transmission of the virus. We knew when we started this practice that it would be enjoyed, but that it also could not last, especially into the cold weather season as most of the cleaning had to be performed outside; even in the summer, the cleaner occasionally created a slipping hazard. Over time, public health officials and the CDC have learned that COVID-19 spreads less commonly through contact with contaminated surfaces, which coincided with our ability to secure a supply of cleaning wipes. This, coupled with the cold weather season making the practice of cleaning carts no longer safe for employees outdoors, made for the right time to change course.
I am sorry to hear that your experience gave you pause about the safety of the Co-op and I hope that some of what I explained here has helped. If you were not already aware, we also have an online shopping option at shop.willystreet.coop if that is of any interest to you. We agree that the caseload in Wisconsin is alarming and will continue both to monitor and modify our practices as best as we can in the current moment to maintain safety whenever possible. Take care. -Kirsten Moore, Cooperative Services Director
Mask policy
Q: I received your email today mentioning the change to face mask policy at the co-op with considerable concern, both for its safety and its legality. Face shields are simply not a substitute for masks; they do not provide meaningful protection to other shoppers compared with an actual face covering. We now know that COVID-19 can linger suspended in the air for many hours; it is not required for a person to spit directly upon you to spread infection, merely to exhale unfiltered air. This is why the current Dane County health order declares that face shields are not an acceptable face covering. There is a narrow exception to the government order for those with a demonstrated medical inability to wear a mask, but no requirement for businesses to go beyond the government order and relax their own rules. What happened to going above and beyond for safety? How will the co-op police medical need, exactly? Making an very public announcement like this is tantamount to having no face mask policy at all, as numerous anti-maskers will simply proclaim nebulous 'medical' issues and refuse to wear masks with no actual justification. What are you going to do when suddenly large numbers of customers refuse to mask up? This new policy makes everyone less safe, especially those of us with actual heightened risks. Up until now I felt the co-op was doing an above average job on COVID protections, but this is a real lowering of the bar, and will almost certainly end poorly, with increased infections, reduced safety, government sanction, or all of the above.
A: Thank you for sharing your concerns. It is very important to us that as many people as possible wear face coverings when they shop our store. However, we have also always recognized that there are some people who cannot wear face coverings due to medical conditions, intellectual or developmental disabilities, mental health conditions, or other sensory sensitivities that prevent the individual from wearing a face covering. As Public Health Madison and Dane County states in their guidance regarding the matter, the Americans with Disabilities Act requires businesses provide reasonable modification of policy to people with disabilities. Previously, our policy modification for people unable to wear face coverings was to simply allow them to shop the store provided that they abided by social distancing guidelines, or suggest that they use our online shopping services. The changes we are implementing make policy modification stricter; those who are unable to wear a face covering for the reasons cited above will now be required to wear a face shield to shop the store instead of nothing at all. People who are unable to meet either the requirement to wear a face covering, or the requirement to wear a shield may use our online shopping services. Only people who meet the qualification under the Public Health order will be afforded the ability to use a face shield at the Co-op, everyone else is still required to wear a face covering. As part of responding to your comment, we double checked with Public Health Madison and Dane County and re-shared our policy with them. They agree that our policy complies with county emergency orders and appropriate policy modification as per the Madison Department of Civil Rights. We appreciate your concern, and will continue to adapt our policies to meet the current needs of our community. -Kirsten Moore, Cooperative Services Director