Central Co-op has bought $2.4 million in local food since pandemic began
As America’s biggest grocery stores struggled to keep meat on the shelves at the height of the coronavirus lockdowns, co-ops kept their heads up and their fridges filled, and not just with any old Tyson or Purdue chicken breasts.
Central Co-op, with locations in Seattle and Tacoma, wasn’t immune from hiccups in the food supply chain, but as an independent, member-owned grocer, it had strings to pull that larger corporations cannot easily grasp.
Kirsop Farm in Rochester, Wash., sold most of its certified organic poultry at farmers markets, which temporarily halted as COVID-19 spread. Restaurants either closed or cut ordering to 10 percent of normal levels to accommodate lower takeout volumes.
“We had never carried them before,” said CEO Catherine Willis Cleveland, but “they meet all of our strict standards.”
And so they bought as much Kirsop chicken as the farm could provide, And, despite a slightly higher price point, “people absolutely love this chicken,” she told The News Tribune in May. “They’re tasting this newest variety of farm-raised, natural, organic, slaughtered-in-the-field [chicken] for the first time.
“It flew off the shelf and now we have people requesting it. And they’re going to remain a regular vendor of ours. That’s a COVID moment.”
Since mid-March, the two stores have bought nearly $2.5 million of product — meat, dairy, produce, wine, water — from about 200 Washington businesses.
“We’ve plugged into this important pipeline, supporting small, local vendors during this tough time,” said Cleveland Willis. “Folks are responding to that, and they’re coming back and shopping more: We’re in growth mode.”
TACOMA’S CO-OP, ONE YEAR IN
The member-owned grocer has operated in Seattle since 1978, expanding to its current location in 1999. Tacoma Food Co-op, which opened in 2011 where cannabis retailer Mary Mart now stands, merged with Central Co-op in 2015 only to close the following summer due in part to a leasing snafu.
The co-op promised it would return to Tacoma in a much larger building, a goal realized just one year ago.
The first few months were rocky at 4502 North Pearl St. Traffic lagged along with sales, leading the store to lay off nine, mostly part-time, employees in August.
Although COVID-19 has ravaged nearly every industry, one sector that hasn’t suffered is, of course, the grocery business. Through three months of mostly staying at home, Americans swarmed Costcos and Walmarts, Safeways and Fred Meyers in search of toilet paper, beans, bottled water and chicken.
If you didn’t normally shop at the co-op, the pandemic seemed like as good a time as ever to start.
At 19,000 square feet, it’s wildly smaller than the average footprint of a Safeway (46,000 square feet) or a Kroger-owned Fred Meyer (160,000 square feet), but it doesn’t feel that way. The new Tacoma store is airy, with wide aisles and room to roam.
Cleveland Willis said her staff began hearing customers mention the wide aisles, the lack of crowds, the ample parking. With a small marketing budget, word-of-mouth has helped the co-op thrive since March.
“The community is catching on and we’re excited,” she said, noting that Central is the city’s only co-op. Otherwise, the nearest co-ops are in Olympia and Eatonville.
Seattle-based PCC Community Markets — where Cleveland Willis worked for 13 years — has 15 stores, with Burien being the farthest south. Tacoma might soon have a second such grocer as Grit City Co-op continues to build its member foundation.
About one billion people have a stake in more than 2.5 million co-ops around the world, which collectively employ 250 million people, according to the International Cooperative Alliance.
In Tacoma, more than 1,600 new members have joined in the first year, and sales are up 60 percent compared to last summer, according to Cleveland Willis, though everyone is welcome regardless of membership and prices don’t vary. Members do receive some perks such as seasonal discounts, including 10 percent off one entire purchase every quarter.
This structure allows more leeway when it comes to contracts with small producers.
“It’s why Central Co-op puts a big, big focus on this area,” explained Cleveland Willis. “It’s a commitment. As an organization you have to be really willing to commit to what that looks like — that fiscal commitment as well as that ethical commitment.”
For many such brands, the co-op is their first grocery account, an essential first step for an upstart food business. For consumers, the co-op is a one-stop shop for basics such as onions, bananas and peanut butter, as well as largely local produce, beer and wine. The vast bulk section also attracts shoppers with everything from flour, rice and beans to granola, nuts and salty snack mixes.
Working with independent producers adds variety often lacking at commercial grocers.
That includes pounds of foraged fungi from Adam’s Mushrooms, a three-person enterprise on Key Peninsula sourcing everything from prized summer truffles and morels to nettles, fiddleheads and sea beans; the sweet stuff from Taylor’s Honey Farm, a beekeeper originally from Tacoma; and Sgt. Hart’s BBQ Sauce from an Army veteran in Olympia.
Two of Tacoma’s favorite coffee roasters, Bluebeard and Valhalla, sell their bags here both in bags and in bulk.
When the pandemic took hold and bottled water disappeared from shelves, Central Co-op snagged jugs and bottles from Mountain Mist, a Tacoma-based company that, in normal times, primarily serves offices.
In another first, the store also started carrying houseplants and garden starts from Cottage Gardens in Graham as customers clamored for gardening supplies and homegrown food.
“Now is actually a great time for people to explore the landscape of what food opportunities there are that they haven’t tried yet,” said Cleveland Willis. “There’s some room for people to embrace food in a new way and take the time to be educated and taste the difference and carry that forward.”
CENTRAL CO-OP
▪ 4502 N Pearl St., Tacoma, 253-888-4288, centralcoop.coop
▪ Hours: daily 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. (first two hours dedicated to at-risk shoppers)
▪ Details: no membership necessary to shop; $100 lifetime memberships ($10 in monthly installments) provide discounts and a voice in the organization