Editor’s Note: Ben Mirin is a Carleton College student journalist who wrote last term for Pressville.org, an online newspaper the class created.
NORTHFIELD — Amidst the economic downturn, the hefty price premiums for organic and local food would certainly seem like an incentive for ecologically minded shoppers to cheat on their commitment to those products.
Yet business at the Just Food Co-op has boomed in the past year.
“In addition to $4 million in annual sales, we actually made a profit in every quarter,” said the Just Food Co-op Board President Bob Ciernia.
People’s wallets are lighter these days. So why are so many Northfield residents still forking out that extra bit of money to pay for organic and local foods?
“The payback is in one word,” said Lee Runzheimer, co-op treasurer. “That word is longevity.”
Runzheimer stood among a throng of local growers who had gathered to reaffirm their commitment to organic and local food production at the Just Food Annual Owners Meeting last October.
That commitment is growing, Runzheimer said, because both growers and buyers “are in it for the values. With periodic spikes in fuel costs and therefore in food prices, our sales still went up 5 percent this year over last. Even during economic downturns like this one, our membership grows at a steady rate.”
With 1,800 current members, the co-op is still adding 10 to 15 new families every month. Its recruiting is carried out entirely by word of mouth.
“As money becomes tighter, more people are interested in buying local because they know where their dollars are going,” said Kathy Zeman, a co-op member who runs Simple Harvest Farm Organics in Nerstrand.
“The co-op is unique because it’s all about supporting the local community,” Zeman said.
“For consumers, buying local preserves the integrity, and often the quality, of the food they eat, and makes health risks easier to trace to their source,” Zeman said.
A dedicated organic farmer, Zeman also tries to regulate her consumer habits. “If we live lives of balance, and try to enjoy foods from local gardens when they’re in season, we’ll have greater appreciation for our food and will be able to support each other,” she explained.
“I make an exception for coffee because I need it every day and I can’t grow it myself,” she added. “I try to treat other non-local foods like bananas as a luxury. Also, if I want strawberries 12 months a year, I dry and can them and make jams during the summer when they’re growing in Minnesota.”
Julia Uleberg, who runs a community-supported agricultural farm near Northfield with her husband David, has adopted a similar strategy to make her investment in local agriculture economically viable, especially in a difficult economy.
“I freeze and can my own food, something I learned how to do on the farm where I grew up,” Uleberg said. “During most of the year I have regular access to raspberries, blackberries and apples, so I can make my own jams and canned goods and sell them to local distributors.”
Kate Wall, the grocery manager at Just Foods, said that with dollars now in shorter supply, co-op customers are making compromises in their shopping decisions.
“People are spending just as much on organic and local food as they were before, but they’re buying different things,” Wall said. “Instead of buying an organically made pizza, they save money, buying organic flour to make the pizza themselves. With the money that saves, they can still splurge on treats like organic ice cream.”
Other consumers have focused more on becoming involved with the co-op over the past year. According to Ben Doherty, who runs a Community Supported Agriculture initiative out of Open Hands Farm with his partner, Erin Johnson, the co-op’s growing membership “speaks to a huge new acknowledgment of the importance of knowing farmers” in Northfield.
CSA is a significant contributor to this trend. “We have all our customers pick up our produce at the farm itself,” Doherty said. “As a part of buying from us, they also get lots of chances to pick their own crops. This really helps people build strong connections with their food and the people who tend it.”
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