By James Watts, Weaver Street Market Head Merchandiser
This week’s owner coupon is 35% off of local, frozen desserts from Homeland Creamery, Maple View Farm, Lunapops, and Locopops. Learn more about the coupon below.
We love our local producers here at Weaver Street Market. From showing off our pictures of standing in fields with baby goats, blueberry farmers, Jersey cows, or ripening sweet corn to sitting with a nervous food producer and hearing about pasta sauce, aged cheese, or packaged salad mix, working with our local producers is what brings us to work in the mornings. Filling our stores with food and products from the community around us is how Weaver Street Market’s merchandisers fulfill their part of the mission of Weaver Street Market: “…for the community, by the community.”
Partnering with local vendors is not operationally efficient. I often find myself wondering whether a particular product is going to be able to hold its space on the co-op’s shelves. Will customers be willing to pay more for a product made locally or switch from the national brand to give this start-up vendor a chance? Will the vendor be successful selling at a wholesale price, or would I serve them better by pushing them to develop their brand at the area farmer’s markets first? What if the product is very successful? Will the vendor be able to scale their production to meet the increased demand? Thankfully, more times than not, Weaver Street Market and our local producer partners do find that selling to the co-op is mutually beneficial, and the cumulative effect of all our efforts has created a “local food system”!
This region has a very diverse food economy with many locally focused producers and buyers of local products. Local government has seen this, too, and is beginning to fund initiatives to facilitate further development of the local food system. Orange County has long seen the benefits of local food systems and has funded farmer’s markets, the Piedmont Food Processing Center, agriculture and small business grant programs, and more. Weaver Street Market is a direct beneficiary of these programs, as many of our local vendors have participated in several county initiatives to enhance their success.
In celebration of our local vendor community, Weaver Street Market will be offering owner coupons that target local products during the coming year. Here at the height of the summer, we’ve got a cool deal: From July 18 to 25, all of our local frozen desserts are 35% off to all co-op owners, by showing your email coupon. Choose from Maple View Farm Ice Cream, Locopops, Homeland Creamery Ice Cream, or Lunapops! Or enjoy them all! SWEET!
This week’s owner coupon is 35% off of local, frozen desserts from Homeland Creamery, Maple View Farm, Lunapops, and Locopops, good July 18-25, 2018. Owners, look for the coupon in our weekly e-news, sent on Wednesday afternoon. If you didn’t get the coupon, you may need to update your email address in our owner database. Questions? Contact us at ownershares@weaverstreetmarket.coop.
Not an owner? Become one today to receive the weekly owner coupon as well as the other benefits of ownership, like invitations to the Co-op Fair, a logo T-shirt and bag, and the right to vote in board elections. Learn more here.