By: Megan Minnick
It’s been a long day (and it’s not over yet.) You’re in a hurry, on your way home, and you need to stop to pick up tortillas for the tacos you’re planning for dinner.
You navigate the Co-op parking lot, then rush in, dodging other shoppers as you make your way to the tortilla section. Once there, you quickly survey what’s available. Of course, you want to choose the best tortillas—a brand that not only tastes good, but is made by a company that reflects your values. But today, you just don’t have the time to inspect each package. So you blindly grab one with a label that seems appealing (you’re not quite sure why), then you head to the registers and out the door as speedily as you can.
Sound familiar?
Love it or hate it, grocery shopping is a chore. All too often, we’re rushed and distracted, and in that moment when it’s just you and the grocery shelf and a million other priorities running through your mind, even the best of intentions for conscious consumerism can be pushed aside.
That’s where the Inclusive Trade Program comes in.
What is Inclusive Trade?
The Co-op’s Inclusive Trade Program is designed to highlight products from businesses that are at least 51% owned and operated by individuals from underrepresented groups. These groups include women; Black, Indigenous, and/or Persons of Color; LGBTQIA+ people; veterans; and people with disabilities.
This program is a means for you, the shopper, to get this important information in as quick and easy a way as possible.
All you have to do is look for the yellow circle:
So, imagine again that you’re choosing between all those tortillas. You scan the shelf and notice that there’s one option that has a yellow circle on its price tag, indicating that it was made by an Inclusive Trade vendor. And what do you know, it also has the purple tag—it’s local.
Instead of the random choice, you make an informed one. You bring home a package of Tortilleria Zepeda tortillas, and not only do you feel good about your purchase, you’re blown away by how tasty they are.
How did you never know that someone was making such incredible and unique tortillas right here in Wisconsin?
What’s behind the Inclusive Trade symbol?
As you might imagine, with thousands of brands to keep track of, accurately identifying and maintaining the list of products that get the little yellow shelf tags is not a small task.
For products the Co-op purchases through their main distributor, inclusion on the list is determined by certifications from reputable national organizations such as the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) and the Women’s Business Enterprise Network Council (WBENC.)
These groups each have their own process for certification, but are known for their integrity and transparency.
In an emailed interview, Erin Watson and LaKesha White of the WBENC detailed their rigorous process for keeping vendor information up to date:
“We require businesses to undergo an annual recertification process …. Additionally, business owners are required to notify WBENC within 30 days of any changes in ownership, management, or control. This notification is part of the legally binding sworn affidavit submitted with every application or recertification.”
While maintaining these types of certifications often comes with fees, financial assistance is available to those who qualify; and certification can open up many opportunities beyond the simple designation as Women Owned or Minority Owned, etc.
“Once a business is certified, it unlocks a plethora of support activities,” explained Constance Jones, Senior Director of the NMSDC. This includes access to information, networks, partnerships, and educational opportunities that they might not otherwise have available.
But the national certifications are just one part of the picture.
The Co-op maintains direct relationships with hundreds of small and local vendors. Because they operate on a small scale, and are not connected to large distribution networks, certification can be impractical for these businesses. To ensure they have the opportunity to be included in the program, a different, less cumbersome process is used.
Instead of certification, these small, direct vendors are asked to fill out an online form stating that their business qualifies for the Inclusive TradeProgram.
That’s it.
The simplicity of this process, and the accuracy of the list is a testament to the close, trusting relationship the Co-op maintains with its vendors.
“We don’t verify certification,” explains Liz Muñoz, the Co-op’s Director of Purchasing. We trust our vendors are representing themselves accurately. For us, the bigger challenge is, how do we get more people interested in participating.”
To this end, the Co-op plans to send out a survey to existing local vendors in 2025, in order to catch businesses that may not have opted in during the initial rollout—though it’s important to note that not all vendors who qualify for the program choose to be part of it, and the Co-op respects that choice.
“This is still a work in progress,” Muñoz says, “The main thing is to have continual progress and to be moving forward, and we’re doing that.”
Why choose Inclusive Trade?
Why should you—one grocery shopper amongst many—consider the Inclusive Trade designation as you’re choosing what to buy?
This is a big question, and one with many different answers, perhaps unique to each of us.
However, when I asked several local Inclusive Trade vendors as well as national certifiers, they all seemed to agree on a few things
Firstly, while running a business is difficult for anyone, it’s much more challenging when the business owner is a member of an underrepresented group. By supporting Inclusive Trade, you’re helping level the playing field, one purchase at a time.
Why is it more difficult?
“The barriers can be divided into two big buckets,” explains Jones of the NMSDC, “Access to capital, and access to information.”
Access to capital is relatively straightforward and easy to measure. For a host of reasons, businesses owned by people from underrepresented groups are statistically less likely to receive funding, whether that be investment opportunities, venture capital, or traditional loans.
Access to information is more complicated. Since many Inclusive Trade business owners don’t come from traditional business backgrounds (from which, by definition, they’ve been historically excluded), they simply don’t have the networks that others take for granted.
“Some minority businesses don’t have the necessary connections that others make through lifelong relationships,” explains Jones of the NMSDC, “Missing those types of relationships means they miss opportunities and information that’s shared with others in the network.”
This could take the form of a family friend who tips a business owner off to an investment opportunity; someone the business owner went to college with who knows exactly how to secure a government contract; or a past co-worker who introduces the business owner to just the right person to talk to when seeking funding.
Though it’s very difficult for someone from an underrepresented group to know exactly what they’re missing in terms of access to networks, the feeling of exclusion is familiar to many of our local Inclusive Trade vendors. Here are just a few stories I heard when speaking to business owners for this article:
Tracy Danner of EVP Coffee has often felt marginalized as a woman business owner. She recounted bringing her brother-in-law to city meetings, “just so I could have a man with me,” having a male barista whom she was working side-by-side with mistaken for the owner of the business, and how business contacts have insisted on talking with her male coffee roaster rather than with her.
Julian Zepeda of Tortilleria Zepeda has noticed people’s “eyes glazing over” when they hear his accent, at times even insisting on a translator. His wife, Heidi (also an owner) remembers a delivery driver who demanded “Where’s the man?” as if her presence wasn’t enough.
These are small examples, and difficult to assign meaning to on an individual level— “I often wonder if it would be easier if I was a white man,” Heidi says. “Am I feeling sexism that really exists, or am I just imagining it?”—but taken together and multiplied by the number of Inclusive Trade businesses in our community, they underscore the insidious and subtle ways that these businesses are discouraged from being part of the traditional business culture.
Beyond the additional barriers that Inclusive Trade vendors face, there’s one more big reason for shoppers to seek out that little yellow circle—and it’s a tasty one.
Constance Jones said it perfectly when she told me, “Supporting minority businesses is supporting the community. It’s not just about the designation, it’s about putting the dollar back into the community and getting access to goods that you may have never been exposed to, but may be the best thing since chocolate cake.”
By supporting a food economy that includes Inclusive Trade vendors, you’re opening up a whole new world of culinary opportunity. Whether it’s those tortillas from Tortilleria Zepeda; or handcrafted Southeast Asian sauces from Madame Chu; or an organic, locally sourced beer from Giant Jones Brewing.
The ingenuity of these businesses doesn’t stop with the food they produce. Because of who they are and where they come from, many are committed to changing the face of business itself, evolving beyond the traditional model of endless growth at the expense of the environment and the community.
In my conversation with Tracy from EVP, again and again, she returned to this point. Yes, she’s had to jump plenty of extra hurdles as a woman and as a lesbian, but she’s happy to do it for the opportunity to set an example for how business can be different—how success can be defined not in endless financial growth, but in paying a living wage, providing exceptional coffee, and a safe place for the community where people can be themselves.
Erika Jones of Giant Jones Brewery has a similar perspective. Giant Jones prides itself on its non-traditional business goals. Their vision of success includes producing flavorful, high-quality organic beer, having a worker-directed organization where people feel appreciated and invested, and making an impact on the community through quality partnerships with other businesses and artists. And while they do measure production volumes and revenues, the money is only in service to the larger goals.
“Who we are and what we value has shaped the way we’re operating and how we interact with the community. A lot of these choices are because we’re women, queer, and we value organic. It’s very different from businesses that are more corporate and chemical based,” says Erika.
So next time you shop, why not keep an eye out for those little yellow circles? They may be small, but what’s behind them is huge.