Wrong Store for White River? NOT!

From the May 22 edition of the Local Daily Newspaper

To the Editor:

As if the existing Co-ops in Hanover and Lebanon are not making enough money in the present tough world economy, the news that the store will be moving into the space previously occupied by the small P&C in White River Junction saddens and worries many area people.

The local people who have long supported the P&C do not need organic leeks and fair-trade coffee. We all need real food at affordable prices. This is not what the Co-op is all about. It is for affluent shoppers.

Obviously, the board of the Co-op has not researched the area carefully enough. One hopes the Haven will be given continuing help for its great need in trying to feed the homeless while they remain at the Haven.

In closing, as Co-op members, we never forget our annual rebate of .000001 percent of the annual expenditure.

Alison Curtis, Pomfret

Dear Ms. Curtis:

I was pleased to read your letter in the May 22 edition of the Local Daily Newspaper because, like you, I am deeply interested in the impending arrival of the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society in White River Junction.

Your connection to the Co-op is not clear to me. Mine is that I have served since 2003 on the Board of the Co-op, three years as president and, currently, as treasurer. I am also vice president of the Board of the Cooperative Fund of New England. These two posts reflect my belief that our local and regional cooperatives are the great success story of an economy that is otherwise in peril. In that regard, I should stress that I have no authority to speak on behalf of either organization. The opinions I express here are mine and mine alone.

I live in Norwich – one of Vermont’s wealthiest towns. I regard myself as unqualified to hold forth on the needs of people in places like White River Junction, which appear to be less well-to-do than the place I am fortunate to inhabit. I’m pretty sure I would feel similarly unqualified if I lived in Pomfret, a town that is also in Vermont’s upper echelon per capita income-wise – and one that is geographically even farther from White River Junction than Norwich is.

In particular, I would propose that we Norwich and Pomfret-dwellers let the good people of White River Junction decide for themselves whether they need organic produce or fair-traded coffee. If they want those things, they’re already available at the nearby Upper Valley Food Co-op, which has an established record of success as a neighbor of the old P&C supermarket. The Hanover Co-op is not coming to White River Junction to impose those kinds of items, or any outsiders’ views of what consumers should or shouldn’t purchase, on the former customers of the P&C grocery store.

I agree with you, Ms. Curtis, when you proclaim that we all need “real food at affordable prices.” But I would respectfully challenge you to present evidence that the Co-op is unaffordable. I realize there is a perception out there that the Co-op is more expensive than its investor-owned competition, but I’ve seen enough hard data to convince me that when P&C was still in business it was charging as much as, or even more than, the Co-op was charging for grocery staples – which is what I understand you to mean by “real food.”

You nevertheless claim the Co-op is for “affluent shoppers.” I will admit that, particularly in Hanover, the Co-op serves a relatively affluent community. There are certainly specialty items for sale at the Co-op that are expensive; they’re there, at the best prices the Co-op can manage, because the customer-owners want them to be there. But if you think the Co-op lacks understanding of, or empathy for, working people, visit one of the Co-op’s three existing stores and ask any employee about it. Believe me, nobody is getting rich working for the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society.

May I respectfully suggest that you visit Burlington before making additional claims that a food co-op with an interest in things like organic and fair-traded food cannot serve a downtown district with an economically diverse population? Like downtown White River Junction, downtown Burlington lost its only supermarket several years ago. That’s when the Onion River Food Co-op, previously a small store that specialized in natural foods, stepped forward to open the full-service grocery store known as City Market. It is thriving today, overcoming the same kinds of prejudices and concerns expressed in your letter.

The reference in your letter to the Upper Valley Haven is puzzling – I can’t tell what you mean by it – but it is also ironic. There is no nonprofit organization with which the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society has a stronger relationship. The annual food drive the Co-op conducts for The Haven is more than 20 years old. The Haven is the Co-op’s “community partner of the month” every February. Other nonprofits clamor for one of these monthly opportunities. Does the Haven, based in White River Junction and providing services to the homeless and the hungry there, welcome the Co-op becoming its immediate neighbor, or does The Haven think the Co-op is a smug and elitist organization with no regard for people in struggle? I haven’t asked them, but you can. Their phone number is 802.295.6500.

I realize that the final assertion in your letter was probably made in sarchasm, but I feel obliged to correct it nonetheless. For 2009, members of the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society received a patronage refund that amounted to 0.6 percent of purchases – an order of magnitude bigger than the 0.000001 percent referenced in your letter. More importantly, the Co-op never claims, as you seem to imply, that the patronage refund is the reason the organization deserves the support of its members and the community. That would make about as much sense as the IRS claiming that people should support their government because they might get a tax refund after filing their Form 1040 every year.

The patronage refund is merely a tangible reminder of an underlying truth that does justify the Co-op’s existence: Unlike an investor-owned supermarket, which exists to extract wealth from customers to benefit investors, the Co-op is the agent of its customers and exists entirely for their benefit, plowing any and all of the wealth it creates right back into the community. And the results are there for everyone to see, on the Co-op’s web site. Care to guess the answer you’d receive if you asked Shaw’s or Price Chopper to tell you how profitable their Upper Valley operations are?

In closing, I stress again that the thoughts above are just my personal musings; I speak for no one other than myself. I am enthusiastic and optimistic as I await the arrival of the new Co-op Food Store in White River Junction. You claim this development “saddens and worries many area people.” If so, perhaps the real story will help ease their concerns.