Your co-op, June 2007

Annual membership meeting

Approximately 275 members attended the 2007 annual membership meeting on May 1, held at Town Hall in Seattle. The evening began with a delicious all-organic meal prepared by the PCC Fremont deli, led by Leon Bloom. The meal, designed by staff nutrition educator Rita Condon and Bloom, featured seasonal and local organic fare.

The menu highlighted a shiitake mushroom frittata with eggs from Growing Things Farm (on the PCC Farmland Trust’s Ames Creek property) and a fresh-picked spring salad from Full Circle Farm. The accompanying grain was millet with lemon and scallions. A dessert of lemon mousse with strawberries earned raves. We’ll post the recipes on our Web site soon.

Each table was hosted by a board member or management team member who facilitated dinner conversations. The dinner tables at our annual meetings have become mini-forums where member feedback is encouraged.

This year, discussion related to our featured speaker’s topic:

• Would you be more willing to buy a local, non-organic product than an organic, non-local product?
• Are you willing to go without certain foods if local or regional organic choices are not available?

Should you wish to share your thoughts on these questions with the board and management, email board@pccmarkets.com or mail your input to the board at the co-op office.

After brief “state-of-the-co-op” reports from the board and management, board candidates for our recent elections each gave short presentations and answered questions.

The featured speaker was David Lively, marketing director of Organically Grown Company, the provider of most of PCC’s organic produce. Lively delivered a provocative address on local and organic food choices. For those not at the meeting, see this issue’s cover story on this topic written by Lively.

Please email board@pccmarkets.com or call Janice Parker at 206-547-1222 if you’d like to get a free CD with videos of the state of the co-op reports and video clips from David Lively’s speech.

For more details and a video slide show, visit the membership section of our Web site and go to member meetings.

Election outcome

The ballot count meeting for the 2007 election was on May 28, so results were not known at press time. Check for results in the stores, co-op office and on our Web site June 1.

Public education and policy

• PCC signed onto a letter to the U.S. House and Senate agriculture committees, urging country-of-origin labeling for meat and produce, as mandated in the 2002 Farm Bill.
• PCC signed onto a letter to members of U.S. House and Senate committees urging them to address unfair consolidation, concentration and market manipulation in agriculture when shaping the 2007 Farm Bill.
• PCC’s nutrition educator, Goldie Caughlan, offered a presentation to seniors at the University House health fair; conducted a nutrition and cooking class for at-risk teens and another for an addictions recovery group; engaged with second graders on food and nutrition; and spoke with a mother’s club in Redmond, a wholistic mom’s club in Maple Valley and a women’s studies group at the University of Washington about nutrition and whole foods.
• PCC’s director of public affairs, Trudy Bialic, testified before the Washington state House Committee on Environmental Health to support a proposed bill to label modified atmosphere meats (and pack dates) and irradiated foods at the point of sale; participated in national conference calls about pharmaceutical crop trials and the 2007 Farm Bill; attended a retreat with the Sustainable Food and Farming Network to strategize priorities for the future; and met with city and county leaders as part of the Seattle/King County Acting Food Policy Council to share the council’s vision and purpose.

Board meetings

The board held a special meeting in April to begin reviewing results of the recent membership satisfaction survey. The board will report to the membership on these results in the July Sound Consumer and on our Web site.

The report on the May 29 board meeting will be published in the July Sound Consumer. The next board meetings are scheduled for June 26 and July 31. The June 26 meeting will be held at the Center for Urban Horticulture and the July 31 meeting will be held at the co-op office. Both will begin at 5 p.m. Member comment period is at 6 p.m.