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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 5, 1980)
local THE BATTALION Page 3 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 1980 Brazos Valley Food Co-op offers students alternative to high prices aw ARES U/ By JANA SIMS City Reporter | On Tuesday and Saturday after noon, vegetarians, “whole-wheat thinkers,” and sometimes even a junk food lover can be seen traipsing across the yard of the home at 308 Ash St. pTheir destination is a small back yard shed, complete with prices on a chalkbord, a tackle box to hold money and buckets and bottles of food The reason? The former para keet house is now the home of the Brazos Valley Food Co-op. KThe cooperative (a store owned /kty collectively by members who share ^ injits benefits) has a vague history. It was started in the fall of 1974 when vegetarian and former Texas A&M University student Dwight Tomkins anti a handful of friends began stor ing food and holding meetings. K-Dwight’s father, David Tomkins, said the group’s purpose was to establish an organization that had enough volume and demand to deal directly with food growers. The food would then be distributed nonprofit- abb by co-op members. Besides being inexpensive, the food is organic (grown with only animal or vegetable fertilizers and no pesticides). But when Dwight gradu ated in 1976, the organization strug gled to keep going. p,"“It kind of died down, ” said Gari Strawn, who lives at 308 Ash St. “Now we re trying to build it up again because it could be a good ser vice. Lord knows college students aren’t always rich. »‘A lot of people who are into this arc vegetarians, but you don’t have t() be a vegetarian to like to get your food a little cheaper.” I And, indeed, when comparing co op and local grocery prices on grains, flours, beans, nuts, seeds, dried •^fruit, spices, honey, juices, oils, (^cheese, tea and whatever else hap pens to be under the co-op’s roof, the co-op is almost always cheaper. ■The average price of popcorn, a popular student snack, at three local groceries is 43 cents a pound. At the co-op it’s 23 cents a pound — almost half the cost. Biweet potatoes, which sell for 37 cents a pound in stores, cost 18 cents for the same amount at the co-op. IpYellow onions that sell for 16 cents Bound at the co-op are 28 cents a Bund in the stores. iiout this olai i AU co -°P s P ices > such as cayenne, ■grading as' curr >’ powder and mustard seed, av- ing for the <?ra K ( ‘ two-thirds less than the prices ition for higti 0 T n ^ groceries. * c w it • Jpln addition, when compared with stedtoknor |> a ! health . food store that ad ^ er - rria bv whickBP the same organic-ness of their I | products that is found in co-op food, ’ nnnsihle trl^P prices are sometimes drastical- benefit coulif y pheaper. An example: Co-op orga- posing youne# disturbed lo: >art of the U jn nic pinto beans sell for 36 cents a pound, compared to 49 cents a pound in local groceries and $1.15 a pound in the health food store. On Saturdays the co-op has cheese and fresh produce. The cheese is purchased wholesale from a local meat market and it’s the only pro duct that co-op members cannot claim is organic. Sometimes inorga nic produce was purchased from a vegetable market but the members found it difficult to keep the prices low. So in the future, co-op will rely on local organic gardeners for fresh produce. Mary Alice Pisani said more produce will be provide as peo ple’s organic gardens get going. The rest of the food comes from the Yellow Rose Cooperative Ware house and Sweethardt Herbs in Au stin. The organic food is ordered by John and Julie Ambler and is picked up by any co-op member making a trip to Austin. Strawn said the co-op then has a work day when everyone puts the food into jars, buckets (which are obtained from the Memo rial Student Center by a co-op mem ber) and jugs. The food, which Mr. Ambler pre fers to refer to as “whole” food (no thing has been removed from it by processing), is marked up by 20 per cent so the co-op can have some working capital. Anyone who “regu larly puts energy into the co-op” re ceives a 10 percent discount. Shoppers are advised to bring their own sacks and jars and to be prepared to weigh their own purch ases. The Amblers rely on their experi ence with a large co-op in Oregon in determining what to order. Ambler said it just takes a combination of common sense and knowing what people like to buy. Most everyone has uses for the basic food times such as beans. But for those who don’t know whether to brew, boil or bury such things as yerba mate, the co-op workers can provide cooking hints and some times recipes. Ambler said the co-op in Oregon did between $1,000 to $2,000 worth of business every day. The Brazos Valley Co-op turns about $100 worth of business per week, with a lot de pending on the weather. Ambler said he wants to see the co-op became a “thriving little busi ness” and his present goal is for the co-op to do a minimum of $300 to $500 business per week. With this amount, he said the co-op could move into a heated and air- conditioned building and order food every one of two weeks. Ordering once a month, he said, makes it hard to plan. Aven Witthaus said she’d like to see the co-op “big enough to where be aj the ? of Englisl N.K.' i’ exist and let you I® is; done by 6'* u see fewer]#! ng out of diet “Rock” Leslie' g Gd Ya Mighta Known It. Just look like you’re gonna get ahead of the game a bit and someone’ll find a way to zap ya. Now, it’s that doggone phone company. They want a raise. So I don’t mind if they get one every once in a while. I tell ya, mine had better come through on time or someone’s gonna be sorry. So, anyway, I found this guy I know who works there and I asked him just what they’re tryin’ to pull on me now. Sheesh, I couldn’t shut him up. He jawed for half an hour and I don’t understand half what he says anyway. But one thing kinda stuck with me. They ain’t had a raise since 1976. That’s four years! Well, I don’t know who looks after phone com panies but someone’d better start. Next time I see that fella, maybe I’ll listen a little closer. Four years...hey, they might even be able to tell me how to stretch a buck. C3B GERERAL TELEPHORE —we stretch bucks! it’s fresh all the time.” With more workers and more business, the tur nover is faster, thus causing food to be brought more often. The original co-op purpose has broadened into three: To provide natural and organically grown foods to the Brazos Valley at low cost, to help people interested in natural foods meet other, and to provide nutritional education and informa tion on uses of natural foods. The co-op’s only formal meetings are held every Tuesday evening in the form of potluck dinners for any one interested. People attending are asked to bring a dish or $ 1 and eating utensils. Most of the people involved in the co-op are Texas A&M students. Strawn said she wishes the co-op also had more of a community interest. “Every four years we have a com plete turnover,” Strawn said, “and that’s the problem. We don’t have any really permanent workers. There might be one really strong stu dent who gets ‘gung-ho’ and, in spite of his studies, he stays over here and works and works and works. When he graduates, everything crumbles. ” As additional people get in terested and volunteer their time, the co-op can be open more hours. Ambler said the co-op can be a good community service. It’s helpful to low-income people and provides foods that aren’t normally available except in health food stores, he said. Now that the co-op is being re vived, he said he’s sure it will grow into his goal of a small business. The only question now is when. EXPERIENCE PERFECTION SEE Henry Dunn At Guys ’tz Gals Suite208, 4103 Texas Ave., South 846-5018 Jbr(wpMy..jQrei/&yM//yr... 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