Membership
by Carol Bridges, Secretary Bloomingfoods Board of Directors
 How do we build a robust food supply in our local area? That is one of the questions your co-op board will be studying in 2010. Our plan includes inviting local food producers of vegetables, grains, meat and dairy to attend a board meeting and be part of a panel discussion. We need to know the obstacles producers and distributors are facing and brainstorm on ways we can all help each other to surmount these obstacles. We will also look into the state of local canneries and kitchen facilities which are available for community use.
Recent lectures by Gary Paul Nabhan, Joel Salatin and Michael Pollan, real food advocates and authors, indicate increasing public interest in securing a wholesome, local diet. With three co-op grocery stores as well as other markets carrying more organic foods, it is easy to feel over-confident that everything is under control in the Bloomington area. But, any stoppage of the daily transport system would leave us with but one to three days supply of any food for the whole county.
We can see urgent food and water needs whenever there is a crisis in other parts of the world such as those due to weather changes or earth shifts. We don’t want to be without a solid emergency back-up plan.
Your co-op board will be gathering information in 2010 and cooperating in whatever way we can to facilitate the success of a stable, local food supply system. Already, we support our local growers by selling their products in our stores and also supporting the Farmers Markets. Bloomingfoods has also co-founded and continuously partnered with a local chapter of Plant a Row for the Hungry, in which 31,405 pounds of fresh food was donated to the Hoosier Hills Food Bank last year.
If you have interest or expertise in securing strong, mutually beneficial relationships among all who are involved in keeping Bloomington a truly nourishing place, you might consider joining our pool of board candidates. Even though elections are not until September, board application packets will soon be available at each of our stores, where you may pick one up.
Board monthly meeting times are posted on our website, www.bloomingfoods.coop, if you would like to sit in on a session to see how we work together. Your talents may be just what we need for our ongoing dedication to maintaining a cooperative community. |
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Ever wonder where active Bloomingfoods members live? Here's a suggestive snapshop of the Indiana towns having the greatest numbers of member-owners. | Indiana Town | Number | | Bedford | 86 | | Bloomfield | 27 | | Bloomington | 4840 | | Columbus | 105 | | Ellettsville | 75 | | Evansville | 10 | | Franklin | 5 | | Gosport | 36 | | Greencastle | 20 | | Greenwood | 16 | | Heltonville | 15 | | Indianapolis | 85 | | Jasper | 8 | | Linton | 8 | | Martinsville | 85 | | Mitchell | 20 | | Mooresville | 8 | | Morgantown | 47 | | Nashville | 251 | | Nineveh | 12 | | Odon | 10 | | Oolitic | 6 | | Orleans | 5 | | Paoli | 19 | | Poland | 9 | | Salem | 6 | | Seymour | 10 | | Solsberry | 34 | | South Bend | 5 | | Spencer | 71 | | Springville | 21 | | Stinesville | 5 | | Terre Haute | 30 | | Trafalgar | 8 | | Unionville | 48 | | Vincennes | 5 | | Washington | 6 | | Williams | 10 | | Worthington | 6 | |
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Fact Sheet: Your Patronage Rebate for Fiscal Year 2009 In November, the Bloomingfoods Board of Directors declared a patronage rebate of $46,488 for fiscal year 2009. What is a patronage rebate? The co-op distributes its surplus profit back to members proportional to how much they spent in the store. How is the amount of each member’s rebate calculated? Your transaction totals are recorded at the registers. At the end of the year, we determine your total purchase amount. We then total all the sales from members. We calculate your total contribution to member sales as a percentage. This percentage represents your proportional share of the profits. Will every member receive a check? The checks that will be issued range from $5.01 to $76.98.
Due to the associated administrative costs, we have determined a minimum check amount. The smallest checks issued will be for $5.01 to customers with annual purchases of about $1,083. For those shoppers who have a rebate of $5.00 or less, the co-op will retain the equity in an account, in their name. I have not received a check and would like to know why. There are several reasons why you might not have received a check. We might not have your most current address or your check amount might have been below the minimum amount for that particular year. Contact us for more information on the status of your rebate. Phone: Brad at 812-339-4442 x114 Email:
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We are excited to be in a strong financial position and able to issue a patronage rebate.
Thank you for making the co-op so successful. |
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About 14 years ago, the Bloomingfoods Board of Directors updated our bylaws to allow for patronage rebates. Patronage rebates are considered an equitable and democratic way to distribute co-op profits to the membership. If a store finishes the year with a profit, the surplus can be distributed among members proportional to their individual purchases. In this way, each member receives their portion of the profit. In November, the Board of Directors reviewed our financial reporting for Fiscal Year 2009 and upon seeing that the co-op enjoyed financial success (during a recession), declared a patronage rebate of $46,488 for fiscal year 2009. After many years of expansion and growth for the co-op, during which any surpluses were reinvested to capitalize and strengthen the organization, we are excited to be issuing a rebate to more than 6,200 members who were active shoppers at the co-op between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009.
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by Carol Bridges
I hope that all of you reading this newsletter have had a winter holiday season in which you and your loved ones shared an abundance of delicious foods. We are so fortunate in our community to currently have enough so that we can generously contribute to local food kitchens that serve people with lesser means to attain their daily bread. It is a good time of year to be grateful for what we have.
Right now, 2% of the American population feed the other 98%. So far, so good. However, the U.S. is now the world’s single largest net importer of foods. In the post fossil-fuel economy, we will need something like 50 million farmers, according to Richard Heinberg, quoted in A Nation of Farmers by Sharon Astyk and Aaron Newton. In 1943, 44% of all the vegetables eaten in the U.S. were produced in home Victory Gardens. During World War II, the total quantity of vegetables produced in Victory Gardens was equal to the total output of produce from all U.S. farms combined. When we recognize the need to do something, we can accomplish it.
Should there be a disruption in the transport of food to our grocery stores, a recent study shows that, at best we could only feed the county for three days and most likely only one. No, this is not just Bloomingfoods, this is all of the grocery stores everywhere. Most retailers are re-supplied daily and have little food warehoused. Without sufficient local suppliers...and these we definitely do not yet have...we would be without food. Period.
This does not have to be our future. We are a caring people, intelligent enough to provide for ourselves and others once we recognize a problem. Perhaps you can add one more resolution to your New Year’s intentions. Support your local farmers, food store providers and workers and plant your own garden. Let all those seed catalogs you are receiving now inspire you to take action this year (or consider buying seeds from our own local purveyor, Nature’s Crossroads). The average farmer in the world is a non-white woman, farming about four acres, growing 15 different crops on them. It doesn’t have to be a large operation. It is the everyday things that six-and-a-half billion people do all the time that change the world. Just start growing.
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