The Latest from Clem Nilan, General Manager

Washington DC's cherry blossoms are heading toward full bloom in late March. My sister, who lives in the more northern climes of Seattle, regularly tortures me about the ridiculously early flower bloom. She claims in early March the hellebores, some camellias, and some of the daphnes are in bloom.

We’re still surrounded by mountains of snow in this old-fashioned winter yet the signs of change are in the air here in Burlington. Days are getting longer, and birds are beginning to sing, including my favorite, the cardinal. A week or so ago I began to hear the clear, cardinal song early in the morning after a winter spent quietly foraging my feeder. The bright red male sits in the tippy-top of one of several neighborhood trees, marking his territory singing, “my tree, my tree, my tree.”

Changes are afoot here at the Co-op as well. You're now reading our first monthly online newsletter. The format gives us the ability to bring you more timely news articles about the goings-on in our Co-op and other related issues.

The Produce Department is finishing up our winter meetings with growers. We sit down with each of our growers, many of whom are longtime suppliers to the Co-op, and discuss the upcoming growing season.

For the first time, we've taken this successful model and applied it to our Bulk Department. Last week we met with Lynn Hazen, who grows black beans and yellow-eyed peas for us up in the Champlain Islands to secure a more year-round supply. Lynn charmed us with regional folklore. Yellow-eyed peas are Vermonters' favorite for baked beans; he can’t sell them in New York (where they prefer pea beans) or in Maine (where they prefer soldier beans). “Not to worry,” we told Lyn, “we will take all we can get.” We also met with Aurora Farms in Charlotte to secure a more stable supply and greater diversity of cornmeal and bread flours. (Please read Meg Klepack’s latest blog post on City Market’s Serving Up Vermont for more information.)

Keeping a steady supply of local food is very high on our to-do list. Although the cardinals are singing and days are getting longer, March and especially April are the leanest months in the year for local food. Fresh food is unavailable and most of the winter storage crops have dwindled.

Vermont co-ops and regional co-ops have banded together to form a group called the Neighboring Food Co-op Association. Our goal is to increase regional food available to our co-ops. We met at the end of January and were very hopeful that our combined buying power will allow us to work on projects that as an individual Co-op we would be unable to handle.

As a final note of good news the co-op movement here in Vermont is expanding. The latest co-op directory shows there are now 17 food co-ops in Vermont!