Celebrating 35 Years

The East End Food Co-op (EEFC) is Vancouver’s oldest – and only – consumer-owned grocery store. This year marks the 35th anniversary of the store, too. Honestly, it’s probably the second best part of my neighbourhood, which is located at the Northern end of Commercial Drive – the best part of my ‘hood are the people who live across the hall from me. For the bast two years, I’ve been a member of the EEFC’s board of directors – we do our best to represent the needs of the Co-op’s membership. These needs, wants and ideas range from providing a healthy range of local products, building relationships with ethical vendors, offering a selection of fair trade products amongst our non-local items (like delicious, delicious coffee), and personalized orders.

And, as a member, you get to have a say in what we do and how we do it.

As written about before on this blog, co-operatives are a thing to celebrate. Whether your business is mountain equipment, food in Toronto or professional hockey, it is a refreshing thing to have your shareholders be the very consumers of your product(s) and/or service(s). According to Harvard’s Henry Mintzberg, the future of business will look more like these examples of co-operative, community-minded models than, you know, the non-accountable shareholder and profits-before-people models we have now.

Recent findings show that 99.2% of people on Earth agree with this necessary, from-business-to-community transformation. Unfortunately, we’re quite far away from such a thing.

The Need to Grow or Die

Our world is a chaotic one. Times have been better for the EEFC, not to mention pretty much every other small, community-minded grocery store on Commercial Drive and beyond. Many things have added to our business being in a tough spot. The recession. The Olympics. Opportunistic multi-national food conglomerates. Fuel prices. Razor-thin-operational margins. Pirates. All of these compounding factors have impacted – or are impacting – the EEFC in a negative way.

Like I said, we your help. We need to grow our business or die trying. If you’re a member, you’ve got a stake in this campaign – heck, you’re one of the many owners! So, over the summer, I encourage you to spread like wildfire these Ten Amazing Rumours About the East End Food Co-op:

1. Member Appreciation Days: Are you a member? Awesome! Do you want to be a member? Awesomer! You get 10% off everything in the store on Wednesdays and Thursdays all summer long!
2. Doug Smith is a Rock Star: Doug is the EEFC’s fearless leader who also plays a mean bass – if you’d like to know more about Doug’s rockin’ ways, please email me today for exclusive video footage!
3. Organic, Fair Trade Bananas! What?! Such things exist? Yes. They do. Stop by and check ’em out.
4. Great deals. Check out the Manager’s Specials today!
5. Stop supporting Corporate Socialism. Ridiculous subsidies to agro-business and petroleum-based supply chains have rigged the food-delivery game against local initiatives like the EEFC. Nobody (except Kurt and Monsanto) likes socialism, so reward good, local, sustainable free enterprise by shopping at the EEFC.
6. The EEFC supports its community. Buy a re-usable cloth bag and a portion of the money goes to a local charity or special cause, like the Stone Soup Film Festival!
7. BOD Hugs! That’s right, folks. Free hugs. Just track down an EEFC Board Member and let us know what kind of hug suits you best.
8. Kraft Dinner. Sorry, Rumour 5, but the EEFC listens to its members. Even if those members want Kraft Dinner.
9. Shopping Carts. The carts are so amazing and agile that a few were taken from the store! Not cool, a-holes. Kinda cool, possibly senile seniors who mistook the carts for their walkers.
10. Celebrity Appearances. Every now and again some local/international celebrities show up to the Co-op. Thing is, the only way to see them is to make sure you’re in the store every day. Will Trevor Linden stop by and give out free hugs with the Board Members? Yes!*

So there it is. Some 100% absolutely mostly true rumours that you must spread about the East End Food Co-op. We’ve got the best food for the best price from the best people in Vancouver. And we can’t wait to see you again or meet you for the first time!

– JCH