The Marquette Food Co-op prides itself on offering a one-stop shopping experience for quality, healthy foods with nutritional integrity and an extensive range of vitamins, minerals and natural remedies and supplements. We support U.P. farmers and producers by offering their products throughout all departments. Browse our department pages to find out more.
A message in response to recent Facebook activity about the March Against Monsanto in Marquette this Memorial Day weekend:
The Marquette Food Co-op is eponymously about food, while from its inception our purpose has gone beyond food. MFC Ends Statements direct the values of our purchasing: “our owners, customers and community will benefit from access to local, organic, wholesome and fairly-traded food and products and the benefits of a healthy, diverse, educated, and sustainable community.”
Our work every day as your Food Co-op staff is to define and ensure that access. That our product mix supports owner needs with a spectrum of value reflecting the diversity of our membership is one measure of our success. Sharing the stories behind the products is another way we entrust that success to you. As much as we are trusted to offer the best choices, we hope you are empowered to make choices which reflect your own values.
As an organization, we care about the food we eat as well as the systems-local and global-that make good eating possible. Since 1971 our operations have included an understanding that every product has a past and a future and we have continuously sought to balance financial stability with social values, ecological health and security, and maximum nutrition for our dollars. We will always be fortified by the depth of those roots as our post-millennial world brings increasingly complex influences to this business of good food.
Yet, this insight comes at a time when the very assumptions that have shaped our global economy are in question.
Your Co-op staff navigates these complexities every day with the needs of our Co-op community in mind. We never take lightly the fact that we make decisions based upon the use of community-owned resources.
As we think about what would have been unimaginable 10 years ago, the Co-op of the future may seem unimaginable, but with our passion as eaters of good food directed in constructive ways we can positively support good agriculture and the industry behind it.
Please consider these additional resources to guide your thoughtful reflection on these complex questions:
https://www.msu.edu/~howardp//organicindustry.html
And the app from the post: http://www.buycott.com/
When the MFC announced the purchase of 502 West Washington Street last spring, a common sentiment in our Co-op community was, “How can we contribute?”
With the legislative chapter of this expansion having opened the opportunity for community investment, the time has arrived! You know, all that stuff we worked on behind the scenes for the past year – it has ensured our ongoing ability to invest in our own organization. Crazy, but cool in its own right.
Even with demolition completed, your investment is still relevant to pending construction phases. We are pleased to announce these options for you to choose a strategy for helping us grow:
Preferred Shares
For those who intend to invest by purchasing preferred shares, please contact General Manager Matt Gougeon by the end of May. Dozens of disclosure documents are still on the loose with 160 shares sold.
Email gm@marquettefood.coop or call 906-226-0671 x10.
Crowdfund us @ indiegogo.com
Join the online campaign to fund the Co-op classroom and teaching kitchen to create the ideal venue for our hands-on workshops and classes. Click here to find out how.
Expansion Gift Certificates
Purchase them now and redeem during the Co-op’s Grand Opening for 10% more than their purchase value!
Expansion Fund
Or simply add your loose change to the jar at the front of the store.
In any amount, your contribution will help open the doors of your new Co-op!
U.P image / MFC logo mashup courtesy of Bohemia Printing.
Click here for the Board of Directors’ May agenda and prior months minutes. Everyone is welcome to attend board meetings, held the third Tuesday monthly at 6pm in the Co-op Conference Room.
Home-cooked meals are not just a dream when some of the work is done for you. With one featured recipe each week, we’ve strategized the shopping for a rush hour slow down to enjoy more time at the table:
Each recipe also includes menu suggestions and nutrition tips from Jennette Turner to expand on your mealtime nutrition – and conversation. There is also an archives shelf for recipes from the past few weeks for those who would like to depend on Rush Hour Recipes more often. We will also be posting printable PDFs of the recipes on the website each week.
Here are links to recipes that have already been available in the store:
03.25.13 : Turkey Salad Sandwiches
04.01.13 : Hot and Sour Chicken and Broccoli
04.08.13 : Sausage and Polenta Lasagna
04.15.13 : Fennel and Cannellini Salad
04.22.13 : Curried Tofu over Rice
04.29.13 : Slow Cooker Beef and Mushroom Stroganoff
05.06.13 : Russian-style Beet and Potato Salad
Great beer news in a great beer city in a great beer state…
Over 50 varieties of ale are now available as singles in the MFC beer cooler!
So, put together your own sampler pack, or try one of something that particularly intrigues your taste.
Of course, you can always pick a pack of your favorite – many top sellers are still packaged – but the chance to be inspired by a single something new or seasonal opens up the beer world in exciting new ways.
Each month our managers sift through a file of ”Temporary Price Reductions” offered by product manufacturers to put together an array of Owner Buys – sales just for Owners of the Marquette Food Co-op. The OB is an increasingly popular program, but by the third week of each month, interest wanes.
Your MFC managers and buyers are pleased to announce a re-imagined Owner Buys sale beginning this month!
The Owner Buys sale items will change bi-weekly: 1st – 15th, and 16th through the end of the month.
Owner Buys now includes the Fresh departments, as we say in the biz. Produce, Cheese and the Co-op Kitchen grab and go, as well as Beer & Wine, are now represented in the Owner Buys sale!
Deeper discounts on fewer items.
Pick up an Owner Buys flier as you enter the Co-op and seize this exciting new opportunity by looking for the purple signs!
Interior demolition at the future space has started as scheduled.
A heartfelt thanks again to all who visited 502 West Washington Tuesday evening for the construction party open house!
The event was all we hoped it could be with incredible support and thoughtful conversations about the new store.
Stay tuned. Stay excited!
Now that the Co-op’s expanding, we need your help to make our dream kitchen happen! We’ve already purchased the building, but money’s tight, and there’s only one station for demo cooking in the current blueprints. We can make a better classroom! We need to raise $20,000 to fund this project. Contributions will got toward renovating the room itself, installing extra cooking stations to keep classes hands-on, extra seating, and a range of utensils to accommodate the many types of classes and workshops we offer. All contributions raised will go toward bettering the Co-op Classroom. Help by contributing to our indiegogo crowdfunding page.
