The Latest News from Wheatsville

Vendor of the Month: Fara Coffee

​ABOUT THEIR COFFEE

Their coffee is exported from Nicaragua to Austin, Texas where they roast each batch with special attention. In order to achieve top quality and consistency, the coffee beans are carefully processed to preserve their full body, bright acidity, and exceptional aroma. Fara Coffee proudly oversee each step of production, from planting to roasting and packaging. Fara Coffee's priority is to ensure their customers will taste quality and care in every cup.

COMPANY

Fara Coffee produces and exports shade-grown, hand picked gourmet coffee. We have been growing 100% SHG Arabica coffee beans on our family-owned farms in the mountainous rainforest of Matagalpa, Nicaragua for five generations.

MISSION

In 2004, Fara Coffee raised the bar for itself — with a proactive objective to have the most environmentally sensitive and socially responsible coffee fincas in all of Nicaragua. Through the Fara Foundation, we give 100% of our proceeds back to the people of Nicaragua in 4 main ways: healthcare, food assistance, education and eldercare. Furthermore, we prioritized Rainforest Alliance certification to reinforce our aim to conserve ecosystems by protecting healthy soils, rivers and wildlife and promote dignified living conditions for farm workers and neighboring rural communities.

Vendor of the Month: Hi-Fi Mycology

HI-FI MYCOLOGY MUSHROOM FARM

Mushrooms are trying to communicate with us. Turn up the volume and tune in to what they are here for. Hi-Fi Mycology is the first local, urban mushroom farm in Austin. The word Hifi represents Hypha which is the branching filaments which make up the mycelium of a fungus. That is a perfect metaphor of how Hifi started up! An idea that is branching into a full blown operation with the intention to grow in collaboration with the right businesses. Hifi is unique because we do everything in house from spawning, inoculating, incubating, fruiting and harvesting. We also produce mushrooms in many forms. Powders, tinctures, dried whole, fresh and even jerky! We are at most Farmers Markets in Austin. We are excited to expand throughout Austin and work with people that desire to incorporate local, holistic, natural ingredients to further enhance the products and services that they provide for the community!

Our tinctures are produced with top quality ingredients. They are Double extracted with one fraction being a 99% ethanol extraction and another fraction being a water decoction.  They are blended to bring the ethanol content to 33%.  We use a fresh batch of dried material for each fraction to maximize the beneficial compounds in each tincture.

Each tincture is specifically targeted for different health benefits.

Tinctures are the easiest and most direct, potent way to benefit from mushrooms. The key is consistency. All it takes is to add a couple drops into your routine everyday! It’s a gradual process. You can either drop under your tongue or add it into a drink of your choice. We recommend 5-10 drops a day.

The Quiet Tincture

Reishi mushroom blended with organic herbs, Skullcap for reducing anxiety and depression, We also add Chamomile which adds a nice digestive relaxant to the mix.

The Sharp Tincture

A blend with Lion’s Mane & Cordyceps. The Cordyceps adds an extra boost of energy along with antioxidants and anti-aging properties.

We also offer the dried form of all our mushrooms! We have dried whole and powders.

The powders are blended dehydrated mushrooms, they make it easier to add into a soup or tea on the go.

I’ve listed below how to prepare each mushroom whole or powder form that we offer below:

Reishi

Fresh Whole & Powder.

Add to soup or tea.

Flavor composition: Earthy, slightly bitter aftertaste.

Reishi is known for its wide range of health benefits.

3 cups of water for every 1 gram of Reishi

Simmer (not boil) mushrooms for 2 hours

You can reuse whole Reishi until there is no more pigment

Lion’s Mane

Fresh & Powder

Eat fresh whole cooked or add to soup and tea

Flavor composition: Mild, fleshy, crab meat texture

Lion’s Mane is one of a kind, a mushroom with glorious mental benefits. Cooking it in just about every form should be tried! Grilling, baking, sauteing, frying.. Cook till it turns a golden brown color throughout

Make Tea or add to coffee

Add to broth or soup

Steep in hot water to activate benefits, then add to any supplemental drink or savory dish

Lion’s Mane Powder

Start your day with purpose and focus. Add a teaspoon per serving into boiling water and let steep. You can blend with different herbal teas or coffee. It takes the edge off caffeine and adds a nice smooth aroma to balance out the bitterness. It’s known to sustain energy throughout the day and keep your brain active.

Reishi Powder

Give your immune system a boost and treat your body with a nice relaxant. Add a teaspoon of Reishi powder per 8oz serving into boiling water then reduce heat and steep for 15 minutes. Let the Reishi calm your body and soothe your stress with just a cup of tea a day.

Boom Pow

Why not season your mushrooms with mushrooms? Hi-fi’s fabulous varietal mushroom powder is mixed with the perfect touch of savory spices and salt & pepper. With its lacto-fermented shiitake powder, it enhances your dish with an earthy, unique flavor that will have you wanting to try it on everything.

Message From The General Manager: Bill Bickford

As this newsletter goes to print, we have just concluded our 2021-2022 fiscal year. Annual reports will be made available in an upcoming issue, following completion of our audit, but what I can confidently share today is that your co-op has had its most favorable financial year in at least a decade. After a number of years spent treading water financially, store operations have now produced positive cashflow for several consecutive quarters. This is an enormous improvement over our performance just a few years ago.

While the co-op was also profitable in each of the past two years, it was only minimally so—and not enough to do anything particularly exciting. This year, we get to make the kinds of energizing choices that are only possible with strong financial performance.

For starters, we plan to pay our first staff bonus since 2015. It was difficult to impossible to pay year-end bonuses when the co-op was not operating profitably, so I am very excited to be able to do so this year. Our staff has absolutely earned it. The operational and staffing challenges of the past two years have not been easy to work through, and our financial performance this past year is a direct result of our staff’s combined efforts. I am optimistic that this will mark a return to the regular staff bonuses of years past based on continued profitability moving forward.

Additionally, I anticipate the board having the opportunity to consider issuing a patronage rebate for the first time since 2013. The ability to pay a patronage rebate back to owners based on their purchases is a privilege unique to cooperative businesses. Much like staff bonuses, patronage rebates are only possible when the co-op is financially successful. While the authority to issue a patronage rebate rests solely with our Board of Directors, I am excited to be able to explore this option for the first time in several years. At minimum, your board and I will have an opportunity to discuss how best to invest this surplus toward our co-op’s future.

While the above is exciting news to share, it’s important to remember that strong financial performance is much more easily lost than achieved. Last year’s performance was strong, yet the co-op still faces several financial and operational challenges moving forward—all the more reason to invest this surplus wisely.

Most importantly, sales and customer count continue to decline year-over-year. That fact, combined with high cost inflation and the continual need to increase staff wages, will ultimately either reduce or eliminate financial gains or force us to operate with fewer staff, which in turn will impact service. The only mathematical way to avoid that outcome is to increase sales, which must be our focus in the year ahead in order to produce similar year-end results.

To that end, if you have feedback on how we can better meet your needs or those of your friends and neighbors, we would love to hear from you. What can we carry that you have to go elsewhere to get? What could we do to make it easier for you to visit your co-op over a competitor? We would appreciate an email to [email protected] with your thoughts!

Message From Our Board Director Brandon Hines

SHAPING OUR SOCIETY BY BUILDING STRONG COMMUNITIES

I have re-written this article several times since my initial draft. It seems that every day I reflect on how much the world has changed since yesterday’s draft that I have to start over again. The events in Buffalo and now Uvalde seem like a natural progression from a long steady stream of disturbing events. A series of events that both signal and exacerbate the eroding of communities.

We live in a modern society—a society that is evolving quickly and not always for the better. We tend to our daily needs with little control over the ever increasing trauma in the world. It is easy to accept what society provides without much consideration when times are good. Many companies have made ordering things online very convenient or have pushed prices down on many commons goods. As a society we often accept these immediate benefits without much thought about the longer-term impacts to our communities.

We are lucky here in Austin that so many forward thinking people built such a strong community. A community that cares about important issues such as having a healthy environment, providing livable wages, working to improve food security, and pursuing social and economic justice. A community that has built much inertia over the years to work towards solving so many issues. Many of these issues are forever uphill battles and inertia can only carry a community forward uphill for so long. I don’t believe that economics should be the sole basis of a community, however, it is an unavoidable fact that economic pressures can provide a community with great strength or slowly weaken a community over time.

It is easy to get lost in the enormity of it all. So many of us have worked most of our lives just to stay afloat. And many more have faced the real struggles of falling behind. The machine of society is large and can be indiscriminate without strong community influence. I often think about what can I, as an individual, do to affect change. At most, each of us can only make a difference at the margins. However, if enough of us align our energies in the margins, we can have a tremendous collective impact.

I chose to live my values. To me, that means doing what I can when I am able to support the organizations that share my values in an effort to benefit and strengthen our community. Of course, I shop at Wheatsville and volunteer on the board. Wheatsville does so many great things for our community. But it is about much more than Wheatsville. It is about the power of cooperatives.

Cooperatives are, by their very nature, focused on the betterment of the community. People create co-ops to address common needs. Such needs can vary from a desire for having healthy sustainable food, to crafting good beer or, as in the case of many formerly enslaved farmers after the Civil War, because their survival depended on working together and sharing resources†. Cooperatives keep power within the community in terms of the economic multiplier of circulating more money locally as well as by maintaining decision making authority over the operation of cooperatives. Even more, cooperatives build
strong communities.

What can you do strengthen the community? Find more opportunities to support cooperatives. The Austin Cooperative Business Alliance (ACBA) is a great resource to learn more about co-ops here in Austin. Do more of your shopping at Wheatsville. Doing so puts our co-op in a better position to grow our community initiates and support a larger cooperative economy. Do you have a particular set of skills and have time to share? Consider volunteering for one of Wheatsville’s community action partners or any of the other great charitable organizations around town. Would you like to get more directly involved with coops? Run for the Wheatsville, ACBA or any of the other co-op boards. ACBA also provides resources for starting your own cooperative. Above all else, identify what matters to you most and take steps to align your everyday activities to increase your impact and align your efforts within the community. As a strong community we can shape society to be more inclusive and responsive to people’s needs reinforcing the idea that there is strength in diversity and that we are all better together. And, just maybe, we can build a society that does not experience so much needless tragedy.

If you would like to learn more about the history of Black cooperatives, check out “Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice,” by Jessica Gordon Nembhard.

Mosquito Control

With record-breaking high temperatures this May, it feels like summer is already here. Mosquitoes are out and they’re hungry. Whether you’re hitting the hike and bike trails, exploring the greenbelt, or just hanging out in your backyard, Wheatsville has got you covered! Both locations offer a wide variety of Deet-free, plant-based bug repellents to help keep the bugs away as you and your family enjoy outdoor activities in our verdant, blooming city. Here are some of my top picks:

Badger
Anti-Bug Shake & Spray

Good for skin; bad for bugs. Keep bugs at bay with this effective, DEET-free bug spray. With a woody citrus fragrance, it smells fresh and clean while repelling insects—thanks to a tried-and-true blend of citronella, cedarwood, and lemongrass. Comes in a lightweight, infinitely recyclable aluminum bottle.

Alba Botanica
Anti-Bug Spray Deet-free

keep bugs at bay with this botanically-based repellent. Effective against mosquitoes and ticks,, air-powered, easy-to-use spray, DEET-free, biodegradable formula

Austin Natural Soap
Buzz Out! Spray

TRIED AND TRUE! They're in the15th year of making this all-natural effective solution for your creepy crawly and buzzing bothers. Try it - you won't be disappointed!  BUZZ OUT! Natural Insect Repellent contains a proven blend of plant-based essential oils in an alcohol & jojoba oil base.

SKEETER SCREEN

Offers a variety of products to help deter mosquitoes and other bugs so that you can relax and enjoy the outdoors.  Wheatsville carries the following Skeeter Screen products: Deet free personal spray,  Yard Sticks, Spreadable Skeeter Screen for garden/yard, patio egg, and more.

Patio Egg Refill

A 8oz refill for your favorite mosquito deterrent: The Patio Egg!

Spreadable

Don’t let the mosquitoes spoil all the fun... A safe and effective outdoor barrier treatment. Safe around children and pets! Will not harm beneficial insects! Great floral scent!

Personal Spray 4 oz

The Deet free personal spray is actually designed to pray on the skin and is made from water based essential oil formula designed to deter mosquitoes and other
biting insects

Yard Sticks

Yard Sticks will help deter hungry mosquitoes! Stick it to pesky mosquitoes with our Scent of Nature essential oil formula and create a “no fly zone” in your area!

Summer Stone Fruit

Summer is upon us! Aside from the hot weather, this also means it is stone fruit season. Fresh, cooked, pickled, juiced or dried, all these fruits are the perfect treat for the season. Named for the large pit inside, which contains the seed, these fruits generally are in season from late May to early September and are at their peak during the summer months. With such a short growing season they are a great option for canning, preserving, and freezing to enjoy year-round. While picking a perfectly ripe stone fruit can sometimes be difficult, there are a few tips and tricks to aid a discerning shopper: Try gently pressing against the stem of the fruit, a slight give should indicate a ready to eat stone fruit.The skin on the fruit should be smooth and plump, the fruit itself should also feel a little hefty for its size. Once you have picked out the perfect fruits, the best way to store them is on the kitchen counter in a paper bag. Whether it be cherries, peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines or any of the in-betweens now is the time to stock up.

Strawberry Jam Recipe

The summer heat is already upon us and seasonal summer fruits and vegetables are appearing in gardens, farmer’s markets, and Wheatsville’s produce department. Summer fruits are some
of my favorites. Fredricksberg peaches should be rolling in soon. This year has been a little drier, so peaches may be smaller but also extra flavorful. Nothing beats a jar of sticky sweet summer peach jam in the middle of December; you can practically taste the warm summer sunshine in every bite.

Preserving produce can seem daunting, but jams are a simple place to start. Most of the equipment is probably already in your kitchen. All that is required are: canning jars with lids, a sauce pot, a large ladle, and a deep pot to boil water. A funnel and jar tongs are also useful, but not required. The most important part of canning is making sure all the jars and canning equipment are clean and sterile before you start. You can reuse Ball and Mason jars provided you have fresh lids and clean rust-free screw bands. Store bought jam containers with screw top lids
should not be reused.

The second most important part of canning is the recipe. Each variety of fruit will require a slightly different ratio of acid, sugar, and pectin to gel up into an ideal jam. There are many great books on canning, “The Ball Blue Book” and “So Easy to Preserve” are great guides. Most brands of pectin also provide recipes on the container. My aunt makes a legendary strawberry jam using the recipe on the back of the Sure-jell low sugar pectin box. I recommend a low sugar version of pectin so you can let the fruit flavor really shine through. However, the real secret isn’t the recipe, but the quality of the fruit you use to make the jam.

If you don’t feel like boiling big pots of water during the already steamy Austin summer, you can make a simple freezer jam instead. No steaming water baths required; you need only boiling water to activate the pectin. Check the pectin box or recipe book for instructions on freezer jam. Whatever method you choose, stock up on some delicious fruit and spread the sweet summertime flavors throughout the year.

Sandy’s Famous
Strawberry Jam

INGREDIENTS

6 cups prepared fruit
(approx. 6 full pints of whole strawberries)

4 cups sugar, divided 
¼ cup measured into separate bowl

1 box low/no sugar pectin

1/2 tsp. butter or margarine (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Bring a boiling-water canner, half full of water, to simmer. Wash jars and screw bands in hot soapy water; rinse with warm water. Pour boiling water over the flat lids in saucepan off the heat. Let stand in hot water until ready to use. Drain well before filling.

2. Stem and crush strawberries thoroughly, one layer at a time. Measure exactly 6 cups prepared fruit into a 6- or 8-quart saucepot.

3. Mix 1/4 cup of the sugar (from the measured 4 Cups) and pectin in small bowl. Add to fruit in saucepot; mix well. Add butter to reduce foaming (this step is optional. If you don’t add the butter it will foam more but still turn out fine). Bring the mixture to a full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirred) on high heat, stirring constantly. Stir in remaining 3¾ cups sugar. Return to full rolling boil and boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim off any foam with metal spoon.

4. Ladle immediately into prepared jars, filling to within 1/4 inch of tops. Wipe jar rims and threads. Cover with 2-piece lids. Screw bands tightly. Place jars on elevated rack in canner. If you don’t have a rack you can use a folded kitchen towel to prevent the jars from rattling against the bottom of the pot. Lower jars into canner. (Water must cover jars by 1 to 2 inches. Add boiling water, if necessary.) Cover; bring water to gentle boil. Process for 10 minutes. Remove jars and place upright on a clean dry towel  to cool completely. After the jars cool, check seals by pressing the middle of the lid with a finger. (If the lid springs back, it is notsealed and refrigeration is necessary.)

Staff Spotlight: Amy

Hi folks, my name is Amy, and I have worked at Wheatsville for just over 8 years; throughout that time, I've worked in a few different departments and collected a few skills along the way! I've worked as a bread baker, produce VAP clerk {think sliced and prepped fruits & veggies,) cashier, and now as a Manager on Duty where I help provide guidance and support to the front-end staff, and really anyone throughout the store.

Where are you from and when did you get to Austin?
I grew up in Central Texas, really the Middle-of-Nowhere during the 1980s. Where I grew up is all farms, prairie land, and big skies. I have lived in Austin for about 15 years but grew up only about an hour northeast of here, so I've been coming to Austin for years to go to local shows and be immersed in the local music scene. 

What is your favorite product at Wheatsville?
Anything from Bouldin Food Forest. They grow various kinds of basil and other herbs, micro greens, and leafy greens all right down the road in Rogers, Texas. Peppery arugula, purple basil, and herb-infused bouquets of intoxicatingly beautiful flowers are on my shopping list literally every week. Down the road a stretch in another direction in Fredonia is Buena Tierra Farms.
We get potatoes, squash, kale, and radicchio (just to name a few) from them and they are stellar quality. I'm always on the lookout for their purple potatoes--they make any potato dish instantly more magical and nutritious!

What is something most people don’t know about you?
I'm pretty reserved so I'm sure there is a lot people don’t know about me. Aside from my Wheatsville life I've worked in the past with local drag queens and theatre companies doing hair, makeup, and costume design. I enjoy slow things like birdwatching, reading, dreaming, and cloud-gazing. I'm usually obsessed with/and researching some particular facet or niche of one of my revolving doors of intense interests: genealogy (I've mapped my family tree for several generations,) history, literature (lifelong love of the Romantic poets,) philosophy, music {jazz, punk, rock n roll in its various iterations...but most recently I've been exploring the works of Liszt and other Romantics,) folklore, workers' rights, subversive counterculture throughout time, Giallo films. I'm obsessed with the ocean and dream about it nearly every night. 

Why Wheatsville? What appeals to you about the cooperative model?
To borrow a comment from one of my co-workers, where you sell your labor matters. I've never envisioned myself working for a corporation where all the money, authority, and power is funneled to the top while being built on the labor of others, and without regard for their concerns. A co-op fundamentally does not operate that way, and I appreciate that as consumers, owners, and workers we are empowered to use our voice if/when we feel compelled to do so. I like that community involvement is built into the way we operate, every day in myriad ways. Volunteering, collecting donations within the community, and donating our own time, money, and space to local organizations is a huge part of what we do.

As far as my current role within the co-op, I like that I have an opportunity to hear my co-workers' concerns and needs, and can provide support and solutions. I think that the pandemic world has made evident, more than ever, how valuable workers are, and it is one of my big aims to really show up for my peers at work in a way that allows them to feel that their time and energy is appreciated, and that they are supported in meaningful ways.