March GM Report
by Kenna S. Eaton
Each month, I report to the board on what is happening in the store as well as our progress on our long-term goals, which we call our Ends. These Ends reflect our aspirations—what we want to accomplish—and they are part of what makes us different from a regular grocery store. We publish these reports as a blog to keep our member-owners up to date on what we are doing.
Our Ends
The general manager strives to provide these benefits to our member-owners and community while operating a strong grocery store:
Strengthen and advocate for our local food system, with a vibrant culture of appreciation and support for local farms and producers.
Treat people well, increasing equity and access by providing a safe, welcoming, and educational environment.
Treat the planet well, by modeling environmental stewardship and regularly sharing our accomplishments and challenges with member-owners.
March Update on Store and Progress on Ends
Working Together to Nourish our Community
Store Update
The store is busy getting ready for spring, and it’s a bit like one of those Tetris games in that things need to move to make room for seasonal additions. Garden seeds have arrived and can be found in our lobby. Soon we’ll be rearranging the shopping carts outside to make room for the plant starts. This will mean that the one bike rack on the north side must move for the season to the south side. You will find it under a gazebo next to the bike fixit station.
Good news: we’ve enabled our registers to automatically round up or down when paying with cash to account for those missing pennies.
In honor of Black History Month, we encouraged members to check out this resource list at https://neweconomy.net/black-coop-history/, which begins,“From mutual aid societies to freedom farms and credit unions – Black communities have been using cooperative economics as a tool for collective liberation, self-determination, and to resist the violence of racial capitalism for centuries. What we call the ‘solidarity economy’ wouldn’t exist without this history and practice, we honor these legacies and celebrate the radical Black cooperators in our network and around the world who continue to lead the solidarity economy movement and make new and liberatory worlds possible every day.”
Ends Update
Local
This year’s Farmer Fund Recipients have been announced, with five full grants and eight partial grants to local farms, ranging from $950 to $10,000, with funding going toward farm infrastructure, storage solutions, equipment purchases, and accessibility improvements. You can read about all of them here: https://www.foodcoop.coop/blog/2026farmerfund.
Now that Iggy’s Kombucha has sold out, we are expanding our local WA kombucha offerings by adding another flavor of Puget Sound Kombucha and bringing in three flavors of Culture Shock, a new line based in Seattle. We have added to our cheese selection with queso panela from Familia del Norte and our tea selection with Olympic Dawn tea blend from Goodness Tea.
We have two new Local 5 vendors – East West Apothecary from Port Townsend and Unplugged Coffee Company from Whidbey Island. Jen and Barclay, the owners of East West Apothecary, have been making herbal remedies for their clients for 20 years (they owned Nourishing Life Acupuncture & Herbal Medicine). Now that they are focused on herbal medicine, they are reaching out beyond their client base, and we are stocking six of their tincture blends.
Unplugged Coffee makes FlashCaf coffee concentrate in original, half-caf, and decaf. They were vendors at the 2025 Farmers Market and are expanding outside of the market season. We currently stock the original concentrate.
Soundcheck Mystery Dessert Competition gave participants a chance to win a $200 gift card to the Food Co-op. Soundcheck, in partnership with the City of Port Townsend, is an annual event that celebrates artists and creators in the community by hosting free interactive events for all ages (to see the winners of the competition go here: https://www.foodcoop.coop/blog/2026/3/3/cereal-ously-sweet-showdown. Separately, the Co-op hosted a “Find Your Way Back to Steady” event at our Annex with Port Townsend Chiropractic leading a talk on a mind-body approach to stress and the vagus nerve.
People
Our first Lunch & Learn for staff in 2026 was offered February 25th, with a focus on The Food Co-op’s 401k plan. For those staff who contributed to their 401k in 2025, we made a 1% matching contribution. Sixty employees received a matching contribution, totaling $29,824!
An all-staff meeting was held 8:30 -11:30 am on March 10th. We kicked things off with a light breakfast catered by Planted, followed by a fun, informative, and engaging agenda designed to reconnect us, grow our skills, and celebrate the work we do to nourish our community every day. The store opened at noon that day. We haven’t gathered as a full team since 2019, and we thought it was time to bring back the energy, connection, and shared purpose that come from being together in one room.
Safety: On February 16th, we conducted a Code Adam drill for the store. Code Adam is an internationally recognized “missing child” safety program in the United States and Canada. The program is named in memory of Adam Walsh, the 6-year-old son of John Walsh (the host of America’s Most Wanted). Today the Code Adam program is used by many large retailers, and legislation enacted in Congress in 2003 mandates that all federal office buildings employ the program. Overall, the drill went well with only two suggestions for improvement: make louder announcements and repeat the child’s description.
Now is the time for members to consider running for our Board of Directors. The board provides essential leadership and vision for the Coop, and this year’s work will be especially impactful as directors lead the search for our next general manager. This decision will help define the Coop’s direction for years to come. So if you love the Co-op and want to see it continue to flourish, consider serving on the board. See https://www.foodcoop.coop/boardservice for more information.
Planet
Did you know that we host a Food Bank Farm & Garden in our courtyard? Volunteers from FBF&G team tend this sweet little veggie plot and donate the produce to the Food Bank. We support the work with water and materials and they supply the labor, and this equals even more fresh produce for those who need it.
With gratitude,
Kenn