Product Spotlight: Nana's Shea Butter

Written by Isaac Kwasi Obeng and Sadie Gordon (Partner Proprietors of Nana’s Shea Butter)

Shea butter is a vitamin and fatty-acid rich solid oil with many anti-inflammatory and emollient properties. It can also be used in cooking with a similar profile to cocoa butter.

Nana’s Shea Butter origins are rooted in my childhood in Ghana, West Africa.  I grew up in a small savannah village called Debibi, surrounded by wild expansive canopies of shea trees.  During my childhood, I often rested under old shea trees that thrived throughout the region.  I helped my grandmother, mother, and village elders collect shea nuts under the old-growth shea trees.  My grandmother, whom I call Nana, taught me how to use shea to make soap, hair and body butters, and even oil for cooking. From my Nana, I also learned the importance of shea in my culture and environment.  

Isaac & his Nana

The African Shea Tree is indigenous to West Africa and thrives in arid environments without fertilizers.  It is sacred in my Nafana tribe because of its versatility and abundance.  It is taboo to kill the tree without a ceremonial offering to Mother Nature.  Not only does shea provide for humans, the hardy tree plays an essential ecological role on the African savannah.  This tree provides habitat for other native species, as well as transpiration, shade, and soil erosion protection with its robust roots.  

Tragically, shea trees are being cut down at an alarming rate to make charcoal for fuel.  I am saddened when I return to Debibi and see fewer and fewer old growth shea trees while the village consequently becomes hotter and dryer.  

The long and laborious process of collecting, shelling, and producing the shea is traditionally upheld by women.  Women are usually paid very little for this work.  Women earn more money by cutting down the trees than by making and selling shea butter.  Rural community members, especially women, need to be paid a living wage for the production of their shea butter in order to discourage rapid deforestation and the devastating ecological effects it has on the region.

As a local Ghanaian, I am able to connect directly with women shea foragers and cut out the multiple middlemen who control and profit from the shea business in Ghana.  By eliminating intermediaries, I am able to pay the local women exponentially more than the local rate for their shea butter, thus supporting the regional economy, shea tree protection, and the human right to a livable wage.

I buy directly from shea foragers on each visit to Debibi.  Nana’s Shea Butter is hand-processed by local Ghanaian women and is 100% organic.  As a result of being hand-processed, the shea retains its many beneficial properties.  The nutty aroma, beige color, and creamy consistency are unique to unrefined shea.  As a result of being hand-processed, there are often dark flecks of the shell and chaff in the nut butter, both of which signify a pure and unrefined product. 

I return to Ghana frequently where my siblings, mother, and Nana still reside.  In fact, my Nana just turned 104 and is still vibrant and sharp.  I continue my commitment to the Debibi community and the greater Brong-Ahafo region.  I return five percent of the proceeds directly back to the women who provided the shea butter to support female-led businesses in Ghana.  As our small enterprise grows, my wife and business partner, Sadie, and I plan on turning Nana’s Shea Butter into a nonprofit organization supporting shea foragers in Ghana.  Thank you for supporting our grassroots business!

Nana’s Shea Butter

$13.99

Shea Butter-based Underarm Ointment

By James A. Holland, Physical Plant Manager & Co-Manager

Empower your armpits with this gentle recipe that changes with the seasons.  Exercise your vomeronasal creativity by blending your favorite essential oils to create new scents for every batch.

This is a basic, open-ended recipe.  Experiment by modifying this base recipe with your own additions and exclusions, especially for those with sensitive skin.  See notes below:

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon - Unrefined Shea Butter (Nana’s!)

• 2 teaspoon - Vitamin-E rich oil (avocado, jojoba, etc.)

• 1 teaspoon - Arrowroot Powder

• ≤ 1 teaspoon - Baking Soda

• ≤ 10 drops - Personalized Essential Oil Blend

• Small container with lid

Add shea butter to small saucepan over low heat until butter is just hot enough to become fully liquified. Reduce heat to low.

Add oil to melted shea and mix. Add arrowroot and baking soda.  Whisk thoroughly until liquid is consistent. 

Allow mixture to remain on low heat for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly to promote ingredient integration.  Do not allow the mixture to boil.  

Remove from heat. Add essential oils, if using, and mix thoroughly. Pour mixture into small container. Place container in refrigerator or freezer for about 15 minutes.  Remove to shake every few minutes to dissuade ingredient settling until the product has solidified.

Notes

• Apply a small amount of product to your underarms as often as you like.  It does not take much and you may be surprised at how long such a small batch of product will last.  

• Consider using less baking soda or essential oil if you experience skin irritation.

Support Indigenous Communities this Season

This time of year holds holidays like columbus day and thanksgiving, which promote misleading and harmful narratives about the “discovery” and european settler-colonization of this continent. As a community-owned grocery store doing business on the stolen land of Chinook, Cowlitz, and Clackamas peoples, we believe it’s important and necessary for us to give some of the wealth and resources we collectively accumulate back to Indigenous organizations and communities.

In addition to supporting Indigenous organizations and businesses, we encourage our community to also educate yourselves about the land you’re on, the people it was stolen from, the history of colonization, and the ways you can support Indigenous survivance and resistance.

Find out whose land you’re on here!

Here are some links to some Indigenous organizations you can learn about, donate to, and tell the people in your life about this season:

The Chúush Fund!

The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is experiencing a water crisis. Donations to this fund directly benefit the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs as they work to restore their access and infrastructure for clean water. 

The Chinook Nation

“The Chinook Nation consists of the five western most Tribes of Chinookan peoples. Our history and constitution define us as being Lower Chinook, Clatsop, Willapa, Wahkiakum and Kathlamet. We have always resided in the lower Columbia River region and always will. We are proud of our heritage and inheritance and ask you to join us in celebrating our rich history and bright future.”

Na’ah Illahee Fund

“We are an Indigenous women-led organization dedicated to the ongoing regeneration of Indigenous communities. Through grantmaking, capacity-building and community-based intergenerational programming, we seek transformative change by supporting culturally grounded leadership and organizing.

“Focused on Indigenous Ecology, Food Sovereignty, and Wise Action, we work to advance climate and gender justice, while creating healthy pathways towards self-determination and movement-building.”

Wisdom of the Elders

“Wisdom of the Elders, Inc. records and preserves traditional cultural values, oral history, prophesy and other messages of guidance from indigenous elders in order to regenerate the greatness of culture among today’s and future generations of native peoples. As First Peoples, we are humbled by the wisdom of our elders and the deep connection they share with Great Spirit, the world of nature and family. We regard our elders as rapidly vanishing, irreplaceable keepers of oral history, tradition and environment. Values they extol represent an ancient legacy of knowledge which has become as endangered as many disappearing species in our fragile ecosystem.”

Navajo Water Project

“40% of Navajo still don’t have a sink or a toilet. So we bring clean, hot and cold running water to families across New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.”

Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women USA

“MMIW USA’s number one mission is to bring our missing home and help the families of the murdered cope and support them through the process of grief. We give them hands-on support and guidance and if we don’t have the answers, we get the answers so that these families do not feel abandoned and alone in this struggle like so many have before them. Our broader goal is to eradicate this problem so that the future generations thrive. We are doing that through education of the threats that they face and self-defense. We just started a monthly program to do just that. It is called Staying Sacred and we educate and have self-defense lessons at every meeting. Our strength lies in the fact that every single one of the staff and volunteers have been assaulted or trafficked and our passion is to be the kind of organization that we needed growing up and beyond.”

Mitakuye Foundation

“The Mitakuye Foundation was created in 2010 as a direct response to the teen suicide epidemic on Pine Ridge. Many of the difficulties that the modern day Lakota deal with – like suicide, alcoholism, poverty, and teen pregnancy – are not inherently part of Lakota culture. They are the terrible by-products of colonization, oppression, and genocide. We create programs and support programs that not only help the youth to survive – but to thrive. All of our programming is geared towards students fortifying their cultural identities so they can turn to their traditions to tackle the difficult issues they face.”

Native Businesses to Support

Indigenous Marketplace directory - Visit this directory to connect with dozens of Indigenous artists and entrepreneurs.

Mercatus Buy Native Guide - Find Native-owned local businesses of all kinds to support!

Reading & Education

• Unlearning with CoFed: Decolonization [Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive]

• Thanksgiving: the National Day of Mourning [PAPER Mag]

• This tribe helped the Pilgrims survive for their first Thanksgiving. They still regret it 400 years later. Long marginalized and misrepresented in U.S. history, the Wampanoags are bracing for the 400th anniversary of the first Pilgrim Thanksgiving in 1621 [The Washington Post]

Free Food Resources in Portland

For the past several years, People’s Food Co-op has organized a free food resource in November or December for our community, known as Bounty Baskets or the People’s Food Pantry (or even longer ago, Thanksgiving Baskets). Thanks to our generous vendors, we have been able to provide this important resource to our community year after year.

Due to the lack of space, time, and staff capacity, we are unfortunately unable to offer the People’s Food Pantry this year.

We understand that this has been an important resource for so many people in our community, and we will plan on continuing to host the People’s Food Pantry in the future.

Here is a list of other free food resources the Portland area has to offer:

Oregon Food Bank Food Finder

Catholic Charities Food Pantry
Near the Co-op!

Urban Gleaners Food Distribution Sites

Crisis Kitchen

PDX Free Fridge

Other Food Access Resources from Partners for a Hunger Free Oregon

Double Up Food Bucks is also available at People’s Food Co-op!

Earn up to $10 in Double Up Food Bucks every time you buy fresh produce at the Co-op. Learn more about Double Up Food Bucks here!

Black Futures Farm

Black Futures Farm

By Makayla Micheal 

“Land has been the root of dominion and as such is the root of revolution and self-determination. Displacement pre- and post-colonialism continues to deracinate our ability to take root, reclaim, liberate exploited land and call it home. Our connection to, relationship with and access to land is an essential source of our healing, power and ultimately our liberation. As land based indigenous people, Black communities have a deep connection to the earth with land as a source of spiritual, economic, cultural and communal grounding.” (1)

We sit now on land that was stolen from the Indigenous and built upon with free labor through the enslavement of Black folk -- both of which helped to elevate the current systems and continues to uplift those who benefit from that dominion. Black folk are tied to the land. We have spent centuries nurturing the land but we now face many barriers that leave us out of the conversation about what food sovereignty looks like. Black folk are heavily impacted by food scarcity and we stand in front of barriers of constant upheaval that leave us with little access to have relationships with the land. Land control is an ongoing issue. From 1920 until now, we have seen the number of Black farmers go from about one million, 14% of the farming population, to forty-five thousand today, about 1.3% of farmers. This has led to an estimated eleven million acres of lost land through the means of disenfranchisement, discriminatory loan practices, discriminatory taxing practices, manipulation of information, intimidation, and straight up theft. 

The space we sit on specifically, the northwest, is land Black folk were never allowed to be on. Exclusionary acts prevented Black folk from moving into Oregon starting in the 1840s and prevented us from access to the 650 acres given to white folk by the government (2). Today, Black folk make up about 3% of Oregon’s population. The work around convening as Black folk, as Black farmers in particular, is important to make spaces for ourselves because there have been so many instances of Black folk being excluded from this land. In a land booming with an extensive food grower movement doing active work to exclude Black folk from creating spaces for themselves, we are doing revolutionary work. 

Today, to be a Black farmer is to lay roots in a space our ancestors were forced to be in. We face barriers that explicitly state we are not welcome. We have historically been set back in our ability to provide generational wealth and legacies, and continue to be. We are back in the soil our ancestors were forced to work, building again our relationship with the earth we spent centuries building. We have long been stewards of the land. To be a Black farmer in these times is a revolutionary act. We are creating self sufficiency and community for ourselves. We are doing the work of finding each other and deciding to work together to feed our people – bringing food sovereignty – and laying down roots for those that will come after us. Black liberation looks like being able to create self reliance, to be able to feed ourselves. 

Farming is dynamic work, involving many moving parts: the planning, the marketing, the work with the actual land, the work with the people, and distribution. In the times of a pandemic, the layers began to grow. We are doing work to bring food to a food scarce population. Black communities have been hit the hardest by the pandemic and food security has always been an issue that has impacted folks of color the hardest. We are now fighting both the right to bring food and self-sufficiency to a population that struggles with food access and now struggles with being disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

Black Futures Farm, a vegetable farm right here in Southeast Portland, was born from the work of the Black Food Sovereignty Coalition. Black Futures Farm is both a concrete standing farm and an ideology of Black folk coming together and reworking the land black folk have been working for a long time since. Black Futures Farm is “a group of Black identified/Diasporic and Continental African people working together, growing food and community.”(3) The aim of Black Futures Farm is community-based, to bring food to black families in the area, and doing the work of structuring a member-owned collective model, dispersing profit through those that put their time into the farm. 

Last week at the farm, we planted okra, cucumbers, winter squash and melons. This week we harvested collards. We spent a weekend setting up a melon field. We waited for our soil test to arrive and we mixed sulfur into the dirt. There is a certain flow to the farm. We convene, we spend time with the plants, the northwest weather in the summer moves from sun to overcast, we meet again, we rest, we go back to the plants, we leave the farm, and then we come back again to meet the next day. We work to grow food and we work to teach other black folk in order to bring autonomy in providing for our needs outside of a white supremicist capitalist system and bridging the gap to food access. We follow in the footsteps of a number of enslaved Africans of the early 19th century who sold produce from their personal gardens to buy their freedom (4). We continue the work of nurturing Black folks' relationship with the land.

“Transforming society requires deep and sustained ideological and strategic mass based organizing, and those tactics have always been at the center of confronting and shifting power shifting in black communities, emerging the collective wisdom of the grassroots into strategies that uproot and dismantle systems of oppression.”¹

You can support Black Futures Farm and the Black Food Sovereignty Coalition by providing reparations to members of black population of Oregon as they begin to work back to their relationship with the land by providing reparations through donations at https://blackfoodnw.org/donate/. The CSA hopes to provide food to other members of the Diaspora in the Northwest. Another way you can support is sponsoring a black family in order to provide them a CSA share in order to bridge the gap of accessibility. 

1. see Black Food Justice Rationale Strategy for a comprehensive look at the ties between Black Liberation and Food Justice for Black folks- https://www.blackfoodjustice.org/rationale-strategy

2. The US Government granted 640 acres to each missionary station in Oregon. The Donation Land Act of 1850 also granted 320 acres of free land to white males, and an additional 320 acres if he was married. Coleman, Kenneth R. “White Man’s Territory: The exclusionary intent behind the 1850 Donation Land Act.” Oregon Humanities, 2018. https://www.oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/owe-spring-2018/white-mans-territory-kenneth-r-coleman/

3. see Black Futures Farm FAQ  - https://blackfutures.farm/faq/

4. Covey, Herbert C.., and Dwight Eisnach. What The Slaves Ate: Recollections of African American Foods and Foodways from the Slave Narratives. Greenwood Press, 2009.

Support Indigenous Communities this Season (& all year long)

This time of year holds holidays like columbus day and thanksgiving, which promote misleading and harmful narratives about the “discovery” and european settler-colonization of this continent. As a community-owned grocery store doing business on the stolen land of Chinook, Cowlitz, and Clackamas peoples, we believe it’s important and necessary for us to give some of the wealth and resources we collectively accumulate back to Indigenous organizations and communities.

When you shop at People’s this November, consider rounding up your purchase to the next dollar (or more) for the Chúush Fund! The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is experiencing a water cusis. Donations to this fund directly benefit the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs as they work to restore their access and infrastructure for clean water. Ask your cashier to round up your total to the next dollar (or more!) for the Chúush Fund, or donate directly here.

In addition to donating to the Chúush Fund, we encourage our community to also educate yourselves about the land you’re on, the people it was stolen from, the history of colonization, and the ways you can support Indigenous survivance and resistance.

Here are some links to some Indigenous organizations you can learn about, donate to, and tell the people in your life about this season:

The Chinook Nation

“The Chinook Nation consists of the five western most Tribes of Chinookan peoples. Our history and constitution define us as being Lower Chinook, Clatsop, Willapa, Wahkiakum and Kathlamet. We have always resided in the lower Columbia River region and always will. We are proud of our heritage and inheritance and ask you to join us in celebrating our rich history and bright future.”

Na’ah Illahee Fund

“We are an Indigenous women-led organization dedicated to the ongoing regeneration of Indigenous communities. Through grantmaking, capacity-building and community-based intergenerational programming, we seek transformative change by supporting culturally grounded leadership and organizing.

“Focused on Indigenous Ecology, Food Sovereignty, and Wise Action, we work to advance climate and gender justice, while creating healthy pathways towards self-determination and movement-building.”

Wisdom of the Elders

“Wisdom of the Elders, Inc. records and preserves traditional cultural values, oral history, prophesy and other messages of guidance from indigenous elders in order to regenerate the greatness of culture among today’s and future generations of native peoples. As First Peoples, we are humbled by the wisdom of our elders and the deep connection they share with Great Spirit, the world of nature and family. We regard our elders as rapidly vanishing, irreplaceable keepers of oral history, tradition and environment. Values they extol represent an ancient legacy of knowledge which has become as endangered as many disappearing species in our fragile ecosystem.”

Navajo Water Project

“40% of Navajo still don’t have a sink or a toilet. So we bring clean, hot and cold running water to families across New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.”

Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women USA

“MMIW USA’s number one mission is to bring our missing home and help the families of the murdered cope and support them through the process of grief. We give them hands-on support and guidance and if we don’t have the answers, we get the answers so that these families do not feel abandoned and alone in this struggle like so many have before them. Our broader goal is to eradicate this problem so that the future generations thrive. We are doing that through education of the threats that they face and self-defense. We just started a monthly program to do just that. It is called Staying Sacred and we educate and have self-defense lessons at every meeting. Our strength lies in the fact that every single one of the staff and volunteers have been assaulted or trafficked and our passion is to be the kind of organization that we needed growing up and beyond.”

Mitakuye Foundation

“The Mitakuye Foundation was created in 2010 as a direct response to the teen suicide epidemic on Pine Ridge. Many of the difficulties that the modern day Lakota deal with – like suicide, alcoholism, poverty, and teen pregnancy – are not inherently part of Lakota culture. They are the terrible by-products of colonization, oppression, and genocide. We create programs and support programs that not only help the youth to survive – but to thrive. All of our programming is geared towards students fortifying their cultural identities so they can turn to their traditions to tackle the difficult issues they face.”

Also, find out whose land you’re on here!

Free Food Resources in Portland

For the past several years, People’s Food Co-op has organized a free food resource in November or December for our community, known as Bounty Baskets or the People’s Food Pantry (or even longer ago, Thanksgiving Baskets). Thanks to our generous vendors, we have been able to provide this important resource to our community year after year.

This year, however, the pandemic has limited our ability to do so many things, like organizing and hosting events.

Due to the lack of space, time, and staff capacity, we are unfortunately unable to offer the People’s Food Pantry this year.

We understand that this has been an important resource for so many people in our community, and we will plan on continuing to host the People’s Food Pantry in the future.

Here is a list of other free food resources the Portland area has to offer:

Oregon Food Bank Food Finder

Catholic Charities Food Pantry
Near the Co-op!

Urban Gleaners Food Distribution Sites

Other Food Access Resources from Partners for a Hunger Free Oregon

PDX Free Fridge Locations

Herbal Support During Wildfire Season

Herbal Support During Wildfire Season

by Brita Zeiler, Collective Manager

Supporting our bodies while enduring this unprecedented wildfire season is critical. Many of us will be experiencing some respiratory irritation which is to be expected. Smoke exposure depletes our body’s ability to function systematically and can cause unexpected side effects by disrupting digestive, cognitive, and even endocrine functions. 

Let’s make taking care of ourselves and others our number one priority while living through this crisis! Our world is on fire, and that fire contains particulate that is harmful to our bodies in short and long term ways, so going about our lives like normal isn’t going to work. Listen to your body, nourish yourself, and allow for more rest. I hope that by sharing this outline of home remedies and herbal allies you identify some practices that bring some relief.

Some common short-term and lingering term effects of wildfire smoke on the body:

• Respiratory irritation

  • Scratchy throat

  • Irritated sinuses

  • Shortness of breath

  • Coughing or wheezing

  • Runny nose or nosebleed

  • Aggravated asthma

• Cardiovascular stress

  • Rapid heartbeat

  • Aggravated heart disease

• Disrupted endocrine system (fight, flight, freeze response activated)

  • Irritability

  • Grief, sadness, feeling out of the ordinary emotions

  • Insomnia

  • Fatigue or exhaustion

• Headache

• Digestion upset

  • Nausea or loss of appetite

  • Constipation or diarrhea 

• Stressed immune system

• Stinging, burning, watering eyes

• Skin irritations

  • Rashes, dry skin, sensitive skin, eczema, acne

Home remedies to support the body

• Increase water intake

  • Maintaining hydration is key! Drinking enough water keeps our tissues and mucous membranes working properly so we reduce the impact of inflammation throughout the body but especially in the respiratory tract. This helps strengthen our immune system by supporting its first line of defense: our mucous membranes. Dry weather conditions make it easier for us to become dehydrated, so consume slightly more than you would typically. 

• Light movement or dry brushing

  • While we cannot exercise outdoors at the moment, it is still important that we get some light movement into our day. Our lymphatic system transports fluids and acts as a filter helping immune cells trap germs, and unlike our cardiovascular system, does not move itself. Lymphatic fluid is transported through the body when we move, so a little dancing, jumping jacks, or stretching improve lymphatic flow. Dry brushing also stimulates the lymph to move. With the extra load of smoke particles in the air, it is essential to keep the lymphatic system functioning!

Herbs to support the body during wildfire season:

• Reishi Mushroom

  • This medicinal mushroom has an affinity for supporting lung tissue, and has a deep immune supportive action in the body. Reishi is ideal for wildfire exposure by helping our bodies metabolize both emotional grief and environmental contaminants that can settle in the lungs. 

• Rosehip

  • Rosehip is rich in immune supportive vitamin C, and has a cooling and moistening effect throughout the body, soothing tissue inflammation. Rich in nutrients and a tart sweetness that lends itself well to an herbal tea. 

• Marshmallow Root

  • A go-to for sore throats or general dryness. Marshmallow root is a medicinal herb that protects mucous membranes from dryness. Best extracted in cold or room temperature water, make a quart jar of respiratory soothing tea by adding 1 tablespoon of marshmallow root herb and cover with cool water. Let infuse for at least 15 minutes and up to overnight in the fridge. Drink at least a pint a day, but a quart is nice in these conditions!

• Peppermint Leaf

  • Hot peppermint tea provides relief from a sore throat, minor aches and pains, and upset stomach. It helps open up the bronchial passages making breathing easier. Peppermint has antiviral and antimicrobial functions too!

• Oatstraw & Oat Tops

  • Feeling frazzled? Try oatstraw or oat tops tea! This tea is ideally steeped overnight. Drink a pint to a quart a day to calm and nourish the nervous and cardiovascular systems - your heart will thank you!

• Chamomile Flower

  • If irritability, panic, or sleeplessness are issues you are dealing with, try chamomile. Drink as a warm tea throughout the day and take deep breaths to stay calm. Chamomile also helps with digestive upset related to anxiety. 

• Burdock Root

  • As our bodies take on an additional burden of processing smoke pollution, we will need extra help processing it and moving it out of our bodies. Burdock is a gentle mover, helping the digestive system and liver do their important work. If you find skin issues coming up try some burdock tea or tincture. 

• Milk Thistle Seed

  • These magic seeds nourish and repair the liver, helping us process food, nutrients, hormones, metabolic waste, and pollutants in the body. With an increased exposure to environmental pollution, giving the liver a boost can be supportive. Milk thistle seeds can be taken as a tea or tincture daily. If making tea, grind the whole seeds in a coffee grinder or use powdered seeds.

All these herbs can be purchased in bulk in our bulk herb and spice section!

Take the 2020 Customer Survey!

We want to hear from you!

Meeting the needs of our community is at the core of our cooperative philosophy. It's particularly important for us to understand how our shoppers’ needs and desires are changing, especially during this time of great change. You can help us gain a better understanding by sharing your experiences & priorities in our 2020 Customer Survey. With your input, we'll be better able to steer the Co-op forward.

We understand that hearing from you is a privilege, and we are committed to keeping your information private and confidential. Data will be analyzed by combining your answers with hundreds of other Member-Owners’ comments.  Click here to see our privacy policy for more information.

This survey takes 10-15 minutes to complete. Some sections require an answer to all questions. We’ve included a section for your responses specifically about your experience at the Co-op during the COVID-19 pandemic – for all other questions, we ask that you answer from your experience at the Co-op as a whole. Thank you for taking the time to answer thoughtfully and honestly.

As a thank you for completing our survey, you will be entered into a raffle for one of five $100 gift cards!

If you’re a Member-Owner, click here for the Member-Owner survey. 

If you shop at People’s but aren’t a Member-Owner, click here for the shopper survey.

Grow Your Own Produce: April To-Do List

Year after year, Marisha Auerbach’s Grow Your Own Produce workshop series has been a staple in People’s events calendar. Her workshops take place once a month February through November, and those who take the whole 10-class series are effectively guided through an entire year of growing their own produce. Even if you decide to take specific workshops here and there, you will still learn what to plant during that month, what kinds of garden maintenance to do, and how to plan ahead for the coming months.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Marisha continues to offer her Grow Your Own Produce series online via Zoom. She has also shared the following April To-Do list, which she usually shares in her classes, for all the folks out there who are looking to start a garden this Spring. For more guidance on these to-dos, sign up for Marisha’s next workshop on April 15th! You can check out more of Marisha’s upcoming Permaculture workshops on her website.

What to do in April

The average last frost date in Portland, OR is between March 23 - April 26. Try to hold back from planting warm season veggies until the end of April.

• Watch the weather. Check air temperatures and soil temperatures. 

• Prepare beds for the garden 1 – 3 weeks before planting. 

• Weed while the ground is soft, wet, and warm and the weeds are young. 

• Mulch to prevent weeds. Rake back mulch and warm the soil before planting seeds. 

• Compost and collect organic matter for the compost pile. 

• Turn your compost pile. 

• Add compost and amend your soil. 

• Get a soil test done to ensure that you have ample nutrients for your plants. 

• Add lime to “sweeten” your soil if you have not done so already. 

• Patrol for slugs and cutworms. Manage hiding places for these pests, snails & other pests. 

• Protect your plants from deer and other wildlife. 

• Ensure good air flow around your plants to prevent fungal disease. 

• Build trellises for vining plants. 

In The Vegetable Garden 

• Check your soil and air temperatures to know when the time is right to direct sow crops or transplant starts outside. 

• Direct sow cold-tolerant vegetables outdoors, such as arugula, beets, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, parsnips, carrots, lettuces, parsley, parsnips, leeks, radishes, spinach, turnips, quinoa, and shallots outdoors. You may choose to transplant those plants that are most tasty to slugs. 

• If you have starts, transplant arugula, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbages, cauliflower, kohlrabi, lettuces, mustard greens, and spinach in the garden. 

• Soak your pea seeds in preparation for planting. Just before planting, cover in legume inoculant. 

• Start tomatillos, basil, ground cherries, and eggplant indoors. 

• Tend to your indoor tomato and pepper plants. 

• Pre-sprout your potatoes for planting outdoors after they harden off. 

• Plant perennial vegetables. Top dress established plantings with compost. 

• Fertilize overwintering crops with nitrogen to perk them up. 

• Harvest spring ephemerals such as rhubarb, lovage, ramps, and spring garlic. 

• Harvest Leafy Greens and other remaining crops from the winter garden. 

• Fertilize your garlic with nitrogen to encourage strong growth. 

• Begin harvesting! 

• Work on using up your winter stores of food as fresh garden produce will be coming soon. 

Fruit Trees and Berry Bushes 

• Tend to the air flow for your fruiting plants by pruning, thinning, and mulching. This will prevent pests and diseases in the future. 

• Finish planting bare root trees and shrubs. 

• Prune woody plants. Prune azaleas, rhododendrons, forsythia, and other flowering shrubs when they are done blooming. Prune summer flowering shrubs before they put on new growth. 

• Control foliar diseases using compost tea on roses, apples, pears, cherry, etc. 

• Watch for currant worms. Ideally, feed the worms to your chickens. 

• Finish grafting fruit trees. 

• Fertilize and prune your berry bushes. 

• Divide and transplant strawberries and raspberries. Top dress with compost. 

• Check your trees and shrubs for insect or disease problems. 

• Spray fruit trees for fungal diseases such as scab and mildew. 

• Inoculate mushrooms in woodchip mulch, straw, or logs. 

Perennials 

• Take pictures and label the locations of your bulbs for dividing in the fall. 

• Consider where you may want to plant more bulbs to enhance repetition and beauty in your landscape. Mark these areas for fall bulb planting. 

• Divide, transplant, and fertilize perennials. Make sure you do this before your perennials begin to flower or get too large (by May for many perennials). 

• Transplant any potted plants into larger containers. 

• Direct sow hardy flowers, such as Alyssum, Borage, Calendula, Feverfew, Love in a Mist, Mallow, Nasturtiums, Phlox, Marigolds, and Flax. In late April, sow half-hardy flowers such as Blazing Star, Canna, Chinese Aster, Cosmos, Flowering Tobacco, Lavaterra, Pincushion Flower, and Sunflowers. 

• Plant summer blooming bulbs or tubers including Gladiolas, Crocosmia, Dahlias, Calla Lilies, etc. 

• Take cuttings of early flowering perennial shrubs and bring indoors for forcing into bloom. 

• Dry herbs for tea, including Lemon Balm, Peppermint, Applemint, Raspberry leaf, and more. 

What’s Fresh this month?

Greens: chervil, kale, arugula, fava bean leaves, sorrel, chard, lettuce, parsley, pea shoots, mache 

Young Stalks: rhubarb, asparagus, lovage, cardoon, bamboo 

Alliums: leeks, spring onions, chives & garlic chives, welsh onions, Eqyptian walking onions 

Roots: horseradish, parsnips, carrots, Jerusalem artichokes 

Take care to eat your roots before they get woody and start to flower!

Marisha’s Grow Your Own Produce Series takes place from 7-9pm on the first Wednesday of the month. Her next workshop, Cole Crops, Greens, & Soil Building, is on April 15th from 7-9pm.

Farmers, Free Food, and Fresh Air: 3 Reasons We Are Still Holding Our Weekly Farmers’ Market

by Ashley Todd, Farmers’ Market Coordinator

As the COVID-19 outbreak has developed in our region, retailers have had to make really difficult decisions about how to keep shoppers and staff safe, and whether the risks of staying open for business outweigh the benefits.

Here at People’s, the Collective Management has been in the unique position of having to do that for both our store and our Farmers’ Market. While the folks have generally been grateful for the store staying open, we have heard many concerns about our decision to continue holding the weekly Farmers’ Market. 

We decided to keep the market open for three main reasons:

Supporting small farmers & producers

Many of the vendors at People's rely on farmers markets as a primary source of their income. On top of that, this is already a lean time of year for many farmers who have invested in summer plantings but don’t have a whole lot to sell right now. We are encouraging farmers to take online pre-orders if they can, to pre-package set-price bags of groceries, and to do anything else they can to move shoppers through the market as quickly as possible. But we also know that many farmers do not have the time or capacity to take on the additional workload of setting up online stores & CSAs. Vendors who do have other retail options are being asked to take time off from the market so we can focus on supporting those who rely on markets as their primary source of income. 

Increasing food access for lower income shoppers

We are concerned about how cancelling the market could impact our lower-income shoppers. Folks can't generally use SNAP benefits to shop online, even if they are purchasing directly from farmers. In addition, People's provides up to $10 in additional funds to people using SNAP at the Farmers' Market (and up to $20 throughout April!). Despite the small footprint of our market, we distribute more SNAP matching funds than most other markets in the Portland metro area - around $500 per week to ~50 families. These funds are only available at Farmers' Markets, and it feels important to keep this program running during a time when so many folks have lost income & jobs.

Providing a healthier shopping option

We heard from some elderly & vulnerable shoppers that they felt safer shopping outside in the fresh air, and that they prefer to buy food directly from growers & producers, since it has likely passed through fewer hands. We also heard that our small store felt crowded and unsafe, even with the 10 shopper limit. 

We are doing everything we can to keep shoppers, vendors, and staff safe & healthy, and have implemented lots of new market guidelines. In addition, the courtyard is closed to vendors until further notice, market stalls are spaced at least 3 feet apart, and we have cancelled all non-essential programming (music, kids' activities, arts & crafts, cooking demos, etc) until further notice. 

Like our store, the market plays an essential role in our community’s health, well-being, and resiliency. We all need to eat, after all. So while we invite folks to continue shopping at the Farmers’ Market knowing it might meet their needs better, we also respect those who choose not to.

COVID-19: Store Updates & Community Requests

This post will be updated as new information emerges. Last updated 1/29/21.

People’s Food Co-op is closely monitoring the news about COVID-19 and its spread in our region. For as long as we’re able to remain open and provide food to our community, we will be taking all the precautions we can to protect our staff and shoppers. During this uncertain time, staff will be implementing new measures to keep our community safe and the store clean. These changes may be implemented with little or no advance notice to our community, and we thank you for your patience and cooperation as we navigate this situation.

Shopping Guidelines & Requests for our Community

• Masks are required for both shoppers and staff.

  All customers 5-years and older are required to wear a mask or face covering while inside the store and on Co-op property, including the courtyard. Masks and face coverings should fit snugly on your face and cover both your nose and your mouth at all times.

  Acceptable face coverings include:

  • Disposable paper masks

  • Medical masks

  • Cloth masks

  • Gaiters and bandanas (only if they are doubled so there is two layers of fabric and they cover the nose and extend below the chin, as per CDC and OHA guidelines)

  NOT acceptable face coverings include:

  • Face shields are not an acceptable face covering. The use of face shields alone without a mask underneath are not effective in stopping aerosols and are therefore not effective in preventing the transmission of COVID-19.

    • If a customer only has a face shield, we will offer them a paper mask to wear under their face shield.

    • If a customer is unable to wear a mask under their face shield, we will direct them to our Curbside shopping program.

  • Masks with valves are not an acceptable face covering. Exhaled droplets and aerosols must be filtered to help prevent the transmission of COVID-19.

    • If a customer only has a mask with valves, we will offer them a paper mask they can wear instead, or alongside their mask with valves.

    • If this option is not acceptable, we will direct them to our Curbside shopping program.

• Please do not come in if you’re sick or have been exposed to someone with COVID-19.

• To reduce the transmission of COVID-19 as well as other pathogens in our bulk and produce sections, we require customers to either wash or sanitize their hands.

  We have a sink in our customer bathroom, and a sink right outside of it, too! Alcohol-based, unscented hand sanitizer (at least 70% alcohol) is provided for all customers while shopping at the Co-op.

• Effective 7/6, reusable containers are allowed at the Co-op again. Reusable containers must be empty and sanitized.

  Reusable containers were temporarily banned from the Co-op since 3/25/20. The ban has been lifted.

  Please wash and sanitize your reusable containers before bringing them into the Co-op to fill with bulk foods and groceries. When shopping in bulk, always use a funnel to fill your empty containers, and please do not touch the mouth of your container directly to any bulk dispenser, scoop, tongs, etc.
  
  Please continue to bag your own groceries if you bring your own shopping bags.

• Cough or sneeze into your elbow to limit spread of germs, and sanitize or wash your hands afterward.

  In general, refrain from touching your face in the store and in other public spaces.

• Please do not eat or hang out in the Co-op.

  While we consider the Co-op a community hub where folks can gather, we request that you do not eat or hang out and socialize in the Co-op or courtyard during this time. Absolutely no “sampling” from the bulk section allowed (ever!).

• Pay with a card or contactless payment.

  If you have access to a credit, debit, or EBT card, please use one of those instead of cash at checkout if you’re able to, or use Apple Pay or Google Pay. This will help limit staff exposure to the many germs that money carries.

Need-to-Know Information

• Our current hours are 10am-8pm daily until further notice (as of 1/3/21)

• In order for our dedicated staff to practice the CDC and OSHA’s social distancing recommendations, only 10 shoppers will be allowed in the store at a time (as of 3/17/20).

  Our staff will manage a queue in the courtyard and let you know when it’s your turn to go in and shop. Please remember to keep 6 feet of distance between you and other shoppers waiting. Please shop alone if possible – each additional person you bring along will count toward our 10-person limit.

• We are now accepting 10¢ bottle returns.

• Our Community Room is closed until further notice (as of 3/13/20).

  • Community Room Rentals: If you’ve rented the room for a public or private event through April, unfortunately your rental will have to be cancelled or postponed.

  • Sponsored Events: If you’re hosting a sponsored event within the next 2-3 months, unfortunately your event will also have to be postponed or cancelled. 

  • The Community Room Coordinator will be in touch with you as soon as they can regarding the cancellations and postponing of events. Please be patient as they may have many people to coordinate with.

  • Event Attendees: If you’ve purchased tickets to an event in our Community Room, the event host should be in touch with you about the event, and let you know whether your ticket cost can be refunded or used at a later date.

Staff Actions to Keep the Store Clean

• All staff are required to follow our masking guidelines onsite.

• Disinfecting frequently-handled surfaces throughout the store, including checkout areas, door handles, bulk bins and jars, scoops and more using alcohol-based cleaning solutions.

  • Cashiers are taking additional time to wipe down and disinfect checkout areas between transactions. 

• The self-serve coffee and tea station, the Sun Room, and the children’s play area are all closed

• Staff who are displaying any symptoms of communicable illness will be advised to stay at home until they are symptom-free for at least 24 hours.

Winter 2019 Long-Term Planning Update

In 2018, after conducting several years of market & industry research, community engagement, and financial analysis, the Collective Management decided to adopt a slate of 1-5 year projects intended to ensure the ongoing health and viability of the Co-op. These projects include, among other things: updating & improving our current space, establishing a prepared food program, and eventually opening a second retail establishment. 

Since then, the Long-term Planning Committee has been diligently working to write a business plan that could guide the Collective toward those goals, while also giving the Co-op flexibility to explore and engage with challenges and opportunities as they arise. In October, the Collective consented to the plan and will begin working to implement it in January 2020. 

The plan outlines 3 phases of development for the Co-op over the next 5 years:

1. Stabilizing: improving & streamlining our operations, increasing our sales, and updating our retail & backstock spaces

2. Increasing Capacity: collaborating with other co-ops, partnering with food businesses & organizations who share similar values, acquiring additional food storage space

3. Growth: establishing a prepared foods venture, adding additional retail space

While the plan is designed to be flexible to accommodate emergent needs and opportunities, each project does include a rough timeline, financial and operational benchmarks, staffing and community engagement considerations, and resources for further research to help the CM stay on track. Individual teams and departments have already begun strategizing around the goals in the plan, and our Root Building Revival working group already has a couple projects in the works that will make our store more functional and attractive.

Want more background on the Co-op’s long-term planning process so far? Check out some of our previous updates:

• Blog, Spring 2019

• Blog, Winter 2019

• Grassroots, Fall 2018

• Blog, Summer 2018

• Grassroots, Summer 2018

Want to talk more about the Co-op’s Long-term Plan? Email planning@peoples.coop.

Supporting Indigenous Communities this Season

This time of year holds holidays like columbus day and thanksgiving, which promote misleading and harmful narratives about the “discovery” and european settler-colonization of this continent. As a community-owned grocery store doing business on the stolen land of Chinook, Cowlitz, and Clackamas peoples, we believe it’s important and necessary for us to give some of the wealth and resources we collectively accumulate back to Indigenous organizations and communities.

When you shop at People’s this November, consider rounding up your purchase to the next dollar (or more) for the Native American Rehabilitation Association (NARA).

NARA in their words: "Founded in 1970 in Portland, Oregon, the Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest, Inc. is an Indian- owned, Indian-operated, non-profit agency. Originally an outpatient substance abuse treatment center, NARA now operates a residential family treatment center, an outpatient treatment center, a child and family services center, a primary health care clinic, several adult mental health locations, a wellness center, and transitional housing for Native women and children. All services are centered on the family as it is NARA’s philosophy that, without the family circle there will be no future.”

In addition to donating to NARA, we encourage our community to also educate yourselves about the land you’re on, the people it was stolen from, the history of colonization, and the ways you can support Indigenous survivance and resistance.

Here are some links to some Indigenous organizations you can learn about, donate to, and tell the people in your life about this season:

The Chinook Nation

“The Chinook Nation consists of the five western most Tribes of Chinookan peoples. Our history and constitution define us as being Lower Chinook, Clatsop, Willapa, Wahkiakum and Kathlamet. We have always resided in the lower Columbia River region and always will. We are proud of our heritage and inheritance and ask you to join us in celebrating our rich history and bright future.”

Wisdom of the Elders

“Wisdom of the Elders, Inc. records and preserves traditional cultural values, oral history, prophesy and other messages of guidance from indigenous elders in order to regenerate the greatness of culture among today’s and future generations of native peoples. As First Peoples, we are humbled by the wisdom of our elders and the deep connection they share with Great Spirit, the world of nature and family. We regard our elders as rapidly vanishing, irreplaceable keepers of oral history, tradition and environment. Values they extol represent an ancient legacy of knowledge which has become as endangered as many disappearing species in our fragile ecosystem.”

Navajo Water Project

“40% of Navajo still don’t have a sink or a toilet. So we bring clean, hot and cold running water to families across New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.”

Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women USA

“MMIW USA’s number one mission is to bring our missing home and help the families of the murdered cope and support them through the process of grief. We give them hands-on support and guidance and if we don’t have the answers, we get the answers so that these families do not feel abandoned and alone in this struggle like so many have before them. Our broader goal is to eradicate this problem so that the future generations thrive. We are doing that through education of the threats that they face and self-defense. We just started a monthly program to do just that. It is called Staying Sacred and we educate and have self-defense lessons at every meeting. Our strength lies in the fact that every single one of the staff and volunteers have been assaulted or trafficked and our passion is to be the kind of organization that we needed growing up and beyond.”

Mitakuye Foundation

“The Mitakuye Foundation was created in 2010 as a direct response to the teen suicide epidemic on Pine Ridge. Many of the difficulties that the modern day Lakota deal with – like suicide, alcoholism, poverty, and teen pregnancy – are not inherently part of Lakota culture. They are the terrible by-products of colonization, oppression, and genocide. We create programs and support programs that not only help the youth to survive – but to thrive. All of our programming is geared towards students fortifying their cultural identities so they can turn to their traditions to tackle the difficult issues they face.”

Also, find out whose land you’re on here!

2019 Bounty Basket Update: Bounty Baskets is Now People's Pop-Up Pantry!

For the last several years, People’s Food Co-op has offered 80 free bags of food (that we referred to as Bounty Baskets) in late November to folks experiencing food insecurity who applied to get one. At this point in November, many folks are probably wondering, “are applications for Bounty Baskets coming out anytime soon?” The short answer is no, but that’s only because we’re changing up this program a bit! Here is everything you need to know:

• The Bounty Basket program has been reenvisioned as an open food pantry, which we are calling People’s Pop-Up Pantry. 

• People’s Pop-Up Pantry will happen on Wednesday, December 18th from 2-7pm in our Community Room. 

• People’s Pop-Up Pantry will offer an array of foods and other products that have been donated to us by several of our generous food vendors. This will be a first-come, first-served pantry where folks can come in and choose the items that best fit their needs. We do ask that folks who attend this pantry be mindful that our supplies are limited, and to take only what you need so that other folks can benefit from this pantry, too. 

• We will offer a limited number of $10 Farmers’ Market Vouchers for folks who want them. These will also be offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

• People’s Community Room is located on the 2nd floor up a flight of stairs. It’s also accessible by elevator lift – just let a cashier know you need to use it and they will help you.

One Stripe Chai

by Sofie Sherman-Burton

There are a lot of different beverages that one can buy that say “chai” on the package: tea bags, tetra pack boxes, buckets of powder that come with their own plastic scoop, and bottles that say “chai tea latte.” As enjoyable as these can be in their own special ways, they only faintly resemble the chai that Farah Jesani, co-founder of One Stripe Chai, saw her parents drinking two times a day throughout her childhood or the chai her community was drinking at the mosque. These other beverages are often more watery, much sweeter, overly cinnamon-flavored, or a combo of all three of those traits.  

 “There was no good chai out there,” Farah cited as a motivation for the business she and co-founder Josh Weinburg founded in November 2015. 

Farah and Josh met at TaborSpace, where Josh was managing the coffee shop and working on a chai concentrate recipe in the community space’s basement. “I thought that was going to be that. Then I met Farah.”

Farah had been working as an IT consultant in New York City but was ready to leave the city. “I was getting really into third wave coffee and really interested in why my latte was six dollars,” Farah said. “I left New York and came to Portland to learn about coffee. I happened to find via a Google search (of course) TaborSpace, where Josh was the manager.” 

TaborSpace ran a volunteer barista program which meant that Farah could learn more about coffee without the real experience she would need to land a gig at another Portland coffee shop. While working at TaborSpace’s cafe, Farah spent a lot of time going to coffee shops around the city. “I once randomly ordered chai at a coffee shop that is really well known, and it was so disappointing. A lot of thoughts went through my mind - is this someone’s first foray into chai? It doesn’t taste like anything, you can’t taste the tea, it’s way too sweet, the barista doused it in nutmeg and now I know why - it tastes like nothing and is really watery.” 

“In most chai products and recipes available in the United States, despite chai literally meaning tea, the actual tea leaves are often neglected. But with One Stripe Chai, the flavor of the tea manages to come through even amidst the strong spices in the brew, providing a more robust and tasty flavor experience.”

With that bad chai experience on her mind, Farah asked Josh what TaborSpace was using for chai. That’s when he told her about his chai experiments in TaborSpace’s basement kitchen. “I was very interested in coffee before that,” said Farah. “But as soon as we started to talk about chai, I was like, no, I don’t care about coffee; I have no relation to it from a cultural standpoint. But I do care how chai is represented.” 

With a bevy of customers eager to be their guinea pigs, Farah and Josh spent the next six months perfecting the recipe for a chai with more kick. “While we were going back and forth, it was a lot of middle of the night emails to Josh: ‘Hey, I just had an epiphany: gotta up the cardamom.’” When they landed on a formula they were happy with, they started selling their concentrate to other coffee shops around Portland. Because Josh had trained so many baristas at TaborSpace, he had relationships all over town that helped them get their new business off the ground. “We had an extra little boost because I had trained so many baristas, there were a lot of baristas that knew what I was working on and they would come to me saying, ‘Our chai sucks. Can you get me a sample?” That helped them get ten accounts right off the bat, and soon customers in those coffee shops were asking where they could buy the chai themselves.

Unlike many other chai products, One Stripe is a concentrate that you mix in a one-to-one ratio with the milky beverage of your choice (I am unsurprisingly partial to Oatly) to make a cup of chai. Concentrates were unfamiliar to Farah. “Even my parents are like, ‘A concentrate? You can just make chai. Why would you make a concentrate?’” Farah says. “Josh explained the need for coffee shops - there’s no space for a stove, you’re not just able to brew up a whole thing of chai.” Having a concentrate means that coffee shops can easily use the steamer on their espresso machines to make a hot, foamy chai. It also means that the perfect fall beverage is just moments away when you’re making chai at home.

There are three major things that make One Stripe’s concentrate stand out. The first is the precise amount of sediment they leave in the bottle; it’s the reason the first two steps in their instructions to make the chai are the shake the bottle, and why the chai maintains its perfect level of spiciness. 

The second is the organic tea that Farah and Josh that “went to the ends of the earth to find,” Josh said. The tea is processed using the Cut Tear Curl or CTC method (the same method used to make Lipton or PG Tips), which means that the tea is in a more granulated form that instantly releases color and flavor when it hits water. But finding a CTC tea that had a superior flavor and was certified organic was a challenge. Ultimately, Josh and Farah found Chota Tingrai tea gardens, a medium-sized, family-owned farm that Farah had the opportunity to visit this past winter. “One of the daughters got her masters at Berkeley in sustainability and she wanted to take that back to her family’s gardens. She is doing a lot of really great social efforts to get more women in management at the farm. All tea gardens in India are required to offer free education and housing for all the workers on the farm. She is bringing in her own extra teachers to teach English to all of the kids. They are doing a lot of cool things that we are interested in and want to support. Our customers also care about that.” 

And thirdly, there is ten times more tea in the One Stripe formula than any other dry ingredient. In most chai products and recipes available in the United States, despite chai literally meaning tea, the actual tea leaves are often neglected. But with One Stripe Chai, the flavor of the tea manages to come through even amidst the strong spices in the brew, providing a more robust and tasty flavor experience. 

As their business grew, Josh and Farah moved their operation to New Foods Kitchen, an all-vegan commissary kitchen in Ecotrust’s Redd building at SE 7th & Salmon, where many other products sold at People’s are made. You can now find One Stripe in many coffee shops around town, and in the tea section at People’s. One Stripe is shelf-stable and should be refrigerated once opened. You’d be hard pressed to find a more delicious, warming beverage as the weather cools down, but you can also get creative with how you use One Stripe, as evidenced by Farah’s granola recipe below. 

Farah’s Granola

Ingredients:

• 1 cup rolled oats

• 1/8 cup maple syrup

• 1/8 cup coconut oil

• 1/8 cup slivered almonds

• 1/8 cup Dark chocolate chips

• 1/8 cup sunflower seeds

• 1/8 cup cashews

• 3 oz One Stripe chai concentrate

Preheat the oven to 250°. Combine oats and nuts in a bowl. Combine oil, maple syrup, and chai concentrate in a separate bowl. Add the wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Pour everything in a thin layer onto a cookie sheet and bake in the oven for about an hour. Stir the mixture around the pan every 15 minutes to cook evenly. Add in the raisins and dark chocolate chunks once you remove the granola from the oven and it has a chance to cool. 

People's is Moving Toward Zero Waste, & We Need Your Help!

By Brita Zeiler, Bulk Herb & Tea Buyer

When People’s was founded in 1970, one of the driving forces was providing more access to food produced close to home for the community with minimal packaging. Over recent years, the popularity of committing to a sustainable lifestyle with a goal of reducing personal waste in small and large ways has grown, giving rise to the Zero Waste lifestyle and movement. The movement has an emphasis on bulk shopping, home cooking, and DIY body care products and cleaners. 

Throughout the years, People has remained a hub for folks striving to live a more sustainable lifestyle with our unique product selection and buying guidelines. We sell a plethora of items in bulk, including: bulk dried and perishable foods, spices, herbs, teas, supplements, body care products, cleaning products, and kombucha. The Bulk Team at People’s is thrilled to share that we continue to further our work in limiting waste and getting closer to a Zero Waste model in our operations. 

What do we mean by going Zero Waste? While there are no magical pipelines that seamlessly transport sprouted organic almonds from the field to our store free of packaging, we are striving to reduce the amount of waste that goes into food production, transportation, and storage as much as possible. We are taking into consideration the waste and inputs required to grow or manufacture a product, its packaging, its delivery, and how it will be disposed of. We understand that we will need to take small steps in order to make a big impact. 

Already, many of our bulk products are delivered in reusable containers that we return to the supplier for refill. We’ve also begun saving and sharing shipping materials with local businesses, rather than recycle or throw them out. We have been working with the local Health Department to re-introduce our reusable container program in bulk, so shoppers have access to sanitary, no-cost reusable containers. There are many more ideas we’d like to implement, and we would appreciate your input on what changes you’d like to see in store. 

This Fall, People’s will be starting a monthly gathering for Member-Owners, community members, People’s staff, and Board of Directors members to gather in the interest of working toward a Zero Waste operation for People’s. In these meetings, we will decide on priorities and projects to move forward on, with the support of our community. We will also be hosting skill-building workshops so you can learn to make your own zero waste products from the bulk section. We hope you can join us and collaborate with us. 

People’s Zero Waste Community Engagement Group - Tuesday, October 15th, 5:00-6:30pm

Do you have a vision for how People’s can support a Zero Waste future? Do you want to learn more about what you can do to help? As individuals and as a community we need to strategize ways to reduce our dependence on single use plastics and overall reduce our waste. People’s has been a leader in sustainability for 50 years, and we are striving to stay engaged in our commitment to this legacy. In this first meeting, we will be introducing our vision and gauge the priorities of projects and engagements at People’s and the broader community. Join us for this meeting to be a part of the People’s Zero Waste Community Engagement Group! There will be snacks from our bulk and produce departments to enjoy. 

RSVP Here!

Zero Waste 101: People’s Bulk Section Basics - Friday, October 18th, 5:00-6:30pm

People’s offers an incredible selection of local, artisan, and affordable products in our bulk section. In this class, People’s bulk buyers will share their strategies for reducing excess packaging in the grocery industry, insight into their selective buying practices, along with sampling some of their favorite items. 

There will be a demonstration of bulk shopping strategies that reduce the necessity of single use containers. 

RSVP Here!

DIY Face & Body Moisturizer Workshop - Saturday, November 2nd, 3:30-5:00pm

Making your own face and body moisturizers is easy, low waste, and cost effective. Customize healing balms to your skin's needs, whether you are suffering with dry, itchy, eczema, or acne prone skin. Learn to choose the ideal ingredients from our bulk section for your skin type, along with a demonstration of how to make your own face and body cream.

Participants will take home a jar of the face cream we make in class, along with handouts to take home.

RSVP Here!

Zero Waste Craft Making for Holiday Gifts: Face Masks & Bath Soaks - Sunday, December 8th, 2-3:30pm

Give yourself or a friend the gift of a relaxing home spa experience with sustainability in mind! In this workshop we will be making a wonderfully scented bath soak blend and face mask with ingredients that can be purchased in bulk. Learn tips on how to take care of your skin in Winter, while taking home an awesome homemade spa package. Kiddos welcome!

Co-op Month 2019!

Co-op Month is the Best Time to Invest!

For nearly 50 years, People’s has thrived in this little pocket of our neighborhood thanks to our Member-Owners who have invested in our Co-op, and thanks to People’s workers past and present who have put so much care into keeping this place open and stocked every day.

This October, support and celebrate our Co-op by investing in your share! And to thank you all for supporting and caring for our Co-op, you’ll get some special incentives for investing in October:

• Invest $15 or more and you’ll get an Equal Exchange Chocolate Bar!

• Invest $30 or more and you’ll get a chocolate bar and a People’s Bandana!

• Invest $60 or more and you’ll get a chocolate bar, a bandana, and a bottle of La Riojana Olive Oil!

Three lucky folks who invest in their share during Co-op Month will find a golden ticket with one of their incentives! If you find one, you could win:

• A $100 gift certificate to Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply

• $50 to vegan restaurant Aviv and $25 to Fifty Licks Ice Cream

• A People’s tote bag full of our favorite fall essentials

If you’ve already invested the full $180 (the full cost of a share), don’t worry! You can invest up to $300 in the Co-op and still get all of these great incentives. Those extra dollars mean a lot here!

Columbia Blossom: Anticipating the Arrival of Our Community's Favorite Stone Fruits

By Sofie Sherman-Burton

Summertime can feel like a waiting game among the produce racks. Are the garlic scapes here? Do we have local cucumbers yet? When will the local tomatoes be here? Is that a Jimmy Nardello pepper already? But there is no local produce that I get more excited for than the fruit that Jim Reed grows at Columbia Blossom Organic Orchards. 

Located in Mosier, Oregon near the Columbia River, Columbia Blossom was the first certified organic orchard in Wasco County way back in 1992. The orchard spans about 30 acres and includes 16 different varieties of fruit: a few different kinds of cherries, apricots, plums, peaches, nectarines, and grapes. Jim aggressively prunes his trees to make sure that the size and flavor of the fruit are what he is after. Between rows of trees, alfalfa is grown as a natural fertilizer, and bats and birds provide the pest control. All of the fruit is also ripened on the tree or vine, and the sugars are tested with a refractometer before the fruit is harvested to make sure they are sweet enough. Once harvested, the fruit makes its way to People’s within a day of picking. All of that extra care and consideration makes Jim’s apricots, nectarines, cherries, and grapes some of the best fruit I’ve tasted anywhere. The wait is a bit torturous, especially when subpar stone fruit starts arriving from California, but it’s all worth it. 

Grilled Nectarine Salad

One way to make Columbia Blossom’s perfect white nectarines even more delicious? Put them on the grill! A little caramelization adds a depth of flavor that pairs well with the nectarine’s sweetness. And it’s a great use of slightly underripe fruit. This salad is delicious, but you can also top grilled nectarines with ice cream or whipped cream (and maybe a drizzle of maple syrup) for a very simple and very delicious dessert. If you don’t have a grill, go ahead and sear the nectarines in a cast iron pan!

• 4 cups of your favorite salad greens (like arugula, our bulk salad mix, or spinach)

• 2 nectarines

• 2 tablespoons walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped

• 2 tablespoons crumbled blue cheese, feta, or vegan cheese (optional, of course)

For the dressing:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

• 1 tablespoon parsley, chopped

• Salt and pepper, to taste

Whisk all of the dressing ingredients together and set them aside. 

To grill the nectarines, cut them in half and remove the pits. Drizzle each piece with olive oil. Grill them with the cut sides down for 2-3 minutes over a medium-high temperature. 

In a large bowl, toss your greens with the salad dressing. Place on a serving platter (or individual plates if that’s your style) and top with the nectarines, nuts, and cheese, if using. I like to serve this salad with the whole nectarine halves, but you might prefer to slice them. 

Super Simple Apricot Jam

This spread can be as simple as apricots and sugar, but you can add some lemon juice or a vanilla bean if that’s your jam (sorry). It’s also a super simple ratio: just weigh your apricots, divide the weight by three, and add that amount of sugar!

• 3 parts apricots

• 1 part sugar

Pit your apricots and roughly dice them. Mix them with the sugar, and set them aside for at least an hour, ideally overnight. Put the fruit in a pot and set it over low heat. Bring the fruit to a boil, stirring occasionally. As the jam thickens, stir almost constantly! Getting the jam to the right consistency will take anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes depending on the width of the pan, the heat of the stove, and the water in the fruit. When the jam is glossy, thick on your spoon, and starts coating the sides of your pan, it’s done. Store it in jars, and process it in a water bath if you want! Otherwise, store it in the fridge. Slather it all over everything. 

Beam me up, Host Defense!

Paul Stamets’ mushroom products help people and the planet live long and prosper.

By Paul Conrad, Member-Owner

Since Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock first boldly went in the 1960’s, the many iterations of Star Trek have been part of popular culture. Countless viewers mentally time traveled to a future where humanity thrives and spreads to the stars. The current Star Trek Discovery has its own unique time-travel twist. One of the lead characters, astromycologist Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamets, is the 23rd-century version of a genuine 21st-century namesake, the legendary mycologist Paul Stamets. The contemporary Paul Stamets is the founder and president of Fungi Perfecti, makers of the Host Defense line of mushroom-based nutritional supplements sold here at People’s Food Co-op. 

23rd-century Lt. Stamets harnesses fungal power to create a “spore drive” that can instantaneously transport the Discovery across vast reaches of space. 21st-century Paul Stamets is the author of half a dozen books on mushroom cultivation, mushroom identification and the use of fungi to improve human and planetary health. He is also the holder of a dozen fungal-related patents. Stamets is dedicated to utilizing the power of mushroom-bearing fungi to help reverse the damage humankind has wreaked on our ecosystem so we can survive until the 23rd century. Host Defense is part of that effort.

The mushrooms we are familiar with are the visible parts of larger organisms. They are “fruiting bodies,” the reproductive organs of subterranean fungal beings comprised of mycelium – cobweb-like networks of cells that extend beneath the surface, exchanging nutrients and engaging in symbiotic relationships with the myriad plants, bacteria and other beings that make up living soils.

Found in soils, and decomposing vegetal matter from forest floors to compost piles, mycelium networks are ubiquitous upon the Earth. Stamets believes that mycelium networks embody a planetary intelligence. 

““The mycelium is an exposed sentient membrane, aware and responsive to changes in its environment... A complex and resourceful structure for sharing information, mycelium can adapt and evolve through the ever-changing forces of nature... like a matrix, a biomolecular superhighway, the mycelium is in constant dialogue with its environment, reacting to and governing the flow of essential nutrients cycling through the food chain.... I see the mycelium as the Earth’s natural Internet.””

— Paul Stamets in “Mycelium Running”

Stamets has made it his life’s mission to partner with fungal intelligence to create solutions to some of the existential environmental challenges we humans have created. He is the originator of the emerging field of mycorestoration, the applied use of fungi to repair and restore weakened and compromised ecosystems. This includes mycofiltration (using mycelial mats to remove pathogens and chemical pollutants from water), mycoremediation (using fungi to degrade or remove toxins from contaminated soils), and mycopesticides (using fungi to both attract and kill insect pests including termites, carpenter ants, and disease vectors like mosquitos and flies). 

The Host Defense line of supplements is all about the protection and restoration of our internal ecosystems. Since our hunter-gatherer days, humans have known about the beneficial properties of particular mushrooms and contemporary scientific research bears traditional wisdom out. Paul Stamets and Host Defense take things to the next step by incorporating the rest of the fungal organism, the mycelium network, to create fungi-based nutritional formulas that:

• support stress and fatigue reduction;

• augment the body's immune system;

• provide support for daily environmental assaults

• deliver enzymes to support digestion and absorption of nutrients;

• & provide polysaccharides to increase the activity & impact of natural killer cells and macrophages.*

Host Defense harnesses mycelium power by taking pure fungal strains, inoculating them onto an organic brown rice substrate, and growing them under strictly controlled conditions at their Washington State production facility. During the growing process, enzymes in the mycelium break down starches and sugars in the brown rice substrate, forming complex substances with their own complimentary immune-enhancing benefits. Once harvested, the mycelium, the digested brown rice substrate and, in some cases, the fruiting bodies and/or primordia are then processed for maximum effectiveness. The mushroom products in Host Defense capsules are carefully heated to release their active compounds, then freeze dried. The mycelium in Host Defense extracts and sprays go through a two-step alcohol and cold water extraction process. Those containing fruiting bodies receive an additional hot-water extraction. 

People’s sells a selection of Host Defense mushroom capsules, extracts, and sprays. They include single-variety products such as Chaga Extract (for anti-oxidant support), Lion’s Mane Extract (which promotes mental clarity, focus and attention), Cordyceps Capsules (for enhanced energy and stamina) and Turkey Tail Capsules (for immune system support). We also offer several Host Defense multi-mushroom formulas (MyCommunity Extract, MycoShield Spray and  Stamets 7 Functional Food Mushroom Blend) for enhanced immune system support.*

Host Defense mushroom products are certified organic. They use mushroom fruitbodies and mycelium that are sustainably cultivated, protecting wild species and their environments. A portion of proceeds from Host Defense sales are devoted to saving rare strains of mushrooms that dwell within old growth forests and supporting ongoing research initiatives, like the BeeFriendly Campaign to help preserve endangered pollinators. The processing, extractions, and formulations of Host Defense products are state of the art, drawing on Paul Stamets’ four decades of experience as a pioneering mycologist. Your purchase of Host Defense products helps Paul Stamets and Fungi Perfecti in their work to build a healthier world with the power of mushrooms. 

To learn more about Paul Stamets and his pioneering work on the environmental and health benefits of mushrooms and fungal mycelium, check out his TED Talks on YouTube. To meet Lt. Commander Paul Stamets of Starship Discovery, go here.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Long-term Planning Update

A lot has changed since People’s started in 1970. We’ve changed what we sell, gone through many different forms of management, expanded our building, and adopted Ends that define our goals and aspirations toward making a better Co-op, a stronger community, and a better world. Our Ends statement, adopted in 2007, reads:

A passionate community working together for sustainability, progressive land and animal stewardship, human rights, social and economic justice.

• Thriving cooperative and local economies

• A safe, welcoming community where all are valued

• A Democratic workplace where all workers' voices are valued

• Access to healthful foods our customers can trust

Even after so much growth and change over nearly 50 years, there are (of course) many challenges our community faces today. The landscape of natural food stores is very different and much more competitive than ever before. Walmart is now the largest seller of organic food in the U.S. New grocers selling many of the same products that People’s does are popping up in our community. These stores don’t prioritize people, the planet, and animals over profits as fervently as we do, and as a result, are able to cut corners. This makes it hard for the Co-op to compete, which in turn makes it harder for us to do things like pay employees a living wage. How do we uphold our Ends while competing with large corporations? How do we expand in a way that fits into the values we’re committed to as a community – the reason why People’s exists at all? The challenges these questions present make it hard for us to move forward with a second store at this time, and the financial situation that competition has helped create make it nearly impossible.

After a thorough investigation and weighing of cost and benefits, People’s will not be moving forward with a second store in the Lents neighborhood at this time. This was not an easy decision to make, and we want to thank all of the Member-Owners and the Lents community for all that they have contributed to our investigation and otherwise helped us along this long process. We will be wrapping up the long-term planning process by fleshing out a business plan that prioritizes financial stability, both at our current location and in the long-term.

One of the options we’ll outline in that business plan is to find another opportunity to open a second store sometime in the future, maybe even in Lents. We are still holding all of the relationships we’ve made and the knowledge we’ve gained as we move forward. For now, though, it doesn’t make sense for us to pursue the particular opportunity we’ve been researching in Lents Town Center any further.

This year, we are focusing on growing and investing within our current walls. If we are going to be successful in spite of so much competition, we need to make sure that we are operating as efficiently as possible. We are addressing questions like how to prioritize work tasks, revisiting our capacity for work and taking on new roles, shifting structures to streamline processes, fixing up infrastructure in the current building, adapting our products and pricing to increase sales, and so much more. All of this we are doing with our Ends in mind and the effects changes are having on workers, our Member-Owners, our customers, and the wider community. Before we can pursue more opportunities for growth, we need to have a handle on operations at our current store.

Along with pursuing options for a second store, we are also still looking at ideas such as finding a warehouse space and a kitchen to expand our selection of prepared foods. Do you know of opportunities in these areas that People’s should look into? If so, let us know! We need everyone to help us in these next steps. We would love to hear your thoughts at planning@peoples.coop.