Share
It’s almost National Co-op Month! How are you sharing the co-op vision with your team in October?
One of the best ways you can get staff excited about working for a cooperative is through food and cooperative-sourced gifts. Stock your staff break room with treats from local and national food created through cooperation, and be sure to tell staff how electric and telecommunications co-ops are part of this story, too.
We all share the same values. Why not celebrate cooperation among co-ops in your community?
Give Co-op Gifts
Giving gifts at an event? Try gift certificates from nationally-known co-ops (Recreational Equipment Inc. and Ace Hardware are great examples). For Pioneer’s annual Content in the Wild selfie contest, we are giving winners $50 REI gift cards. Why? Because we love supporting other types of co-ops, and giving co-op cash tells a story. If you have giveaways during October, use cooperative-sourced items. Cabot Creamery, based in New England, sometimes gives away samples for member meetings and cheese baskets for raffles (here’s the donation form).
Have other types of co-ops in your community? Ask them if they offer gifts to other cooperatives for community celebrations, and be sure to offer something fun for them to give their staff or members, too!
Share Co-op Food
Cooperation among cooperatives takes on a whole new — and delicious — meaning in the grocery store. Start your co-op food shopping spree by looking for grocery co-ops. Some of these co-ops source food from community co-op brands and might offer to curate a co-op basket for you. Use the National Co-op Grocers’ Association search feature to see who serves your community.
No nearby co-op stores? No worries. There are plenty of national co-op brands on your local grocery store shelves. Here’s a dozen easy-to-find cooperative food brands:
- Equal Exchange (chocolate, coffee, tea)
- Tillamook Creamery (cheese, ice cream, yogurt)
- Cabot Creamery (cheese, butter)
- Blue Diamond (almonds, crackers, milk)
- Land O’Lakes (butter, eggs, cheese)
- Ocean Spray (cranberry juice, sauce and fruit)
- Organic Valley (milk, cheese, butter, eggs, sour cream)
- Welch Foods, Inc. (grape juice, spreads, snacks)
- Sunkist Growers Inc. (oranges, grapefruit, lemons, orange juice, snacks)
- American Crystal Sugar Co. (sugar)
- SunMaid (raisins, apricots, prunes, yogurt-covered raisins, bread)
- Florida’s Natural Growers Inc. (orange juice, lemonade, grapefruit juice)
Want more cooperation?
Invite local co-ops to join you at community events! Some states celebrate National Co-op Month or work on youth education programs by partnering with local food co-ops, credit unions, agriculture co-ops and hardware co-ops. For more ways to share your story with staff and consumers, visit pioneer.coop/inspiration.