Minutes for June 8th, 2008 Food Co-op meeting.
Present: Jessica, Jeremy D, Johnny, Margaritte (sp?) Andrea, Heather, Fred, Poloma, Kristine, Allison, Margaret, Rebecca, Ron
This is a shared document. For the sake of concision I have pared down some of the discussion. If you feel I have not adequately expressed the nature of the meeting, feel free to edit the file to suit your original intent.
New Farms/Communication Problems
We touched on the communication problems from this week’s order. Previously coop members present at the meeting on May 11 had decided to try a new farm this month. Unfortunately there was not enough communication between those at the meeting, Rebecca (who was to make the order), Randy and Lara.
We decided the solution would be to add one more person to the accounting/purchasing team of Randy and Lara specifically to handle the orders for farms that are not Jaime. We decided Rebecca would do this for the time being.
We discussed the merits of the farms. Jaime Farms has a longstanding relationship with the Food Coop, and they tend to bring a lot of quantity to us. Finley farms, on the other hand, seems to have better quality produce, but does not give as much food for the same money. This week, for instance, we split the money 50/50 between Jaime and Finley farms, but Finley gave us only about 25% of the food.
Our ultimate decision was to try a different farm for the order on June 29th. Rebecca will meet with Lara on or before June 22. They will notify the list serve which farm they go to. We will then discuss the quality of the new farm at the next meeting on July 6th.
New Farms Reconnaissance.
Ron did some research into the South Central Coop farm. The farm has moved outside of Bakersfield, and would be willing to do a labor trade for food. Five or six of us would help harvest (probably a six hour shift on a Friday or Saturday) in exchange for our vegetables. Many enthusiastic volunteers. We will discuss the mechanics of this at our next meeting/on the listserv.
Rebecca looked into Tutti Frutti, McGrath? Family Farms, and Berchardt (sp?). Tutti Frutti and McGrath? have a great vegetable selection. Berchardt has great fruit selection. The prices tended to be higher, but the quality matches.
Jeremy inquired into a few local organic restaurants to see which farms they use. Turns out they use many of the same that we are considering.
A New Member and a some new ideas.
Johnny comes to us from the Bicycle Kitchen and was involved in the Park Slope food co-op in New York. He had talked to the Thai Development Community building on Hollywood/Western about putting in some food co-op space to coincide with a new wing of the Bicycle Kitchen. We decided to talk about this at a later meeting.