The Latest News from Wheatsville

Covid Response

WE ARE DEDICATED TO KEEPING YOU INFORMED

HOW IS WHEATSVILLE RESPONDING TO COVID-19 AND THE INCREASE IN STORE TRAFFIC?

At Wheatsville the safety of our staff, shoppers and the Austin Community is our greatest concern.  In response to current events we have we have increased efforts to providing a safe and sanitary shopping experience for you. Along with our standard dedication to industry best practices we have taken greater measures to help minimize any risks of the spread of COVID-19. As of 5/28/20 we have taken the following precautionary measures:

HOW WE ARE RESPONDING TO MANAGING INSTORE TRAFFIC

•  In compliance with the mandate by the Mayor of the City of Austin we will be requiring all staff wear a face mask or covering while working. In addition all customers will be asked to wear a face covering or mask while on the premises.
•  Wheatsville’s hours are currently 7:30 am - 9 pm at our Gualdalupe location and 7:30 to 10 pm at our S. Lamar location every day.
•  Although we continue to get regular deliveries from our distribution warehouses we are currently limiting the number of certain staple grocery items that we are allowing customers to purchase. For a current list of items please visit https://wheatsville.coop/news-and-events/news/wheatsville-product-limits
•  Strictly monitoring social distancing for our staff and customers. Store wide announcements are made every thirty minutes as a reminder to be respectful of personal space and keep a minimum of 6 feet from each other.
•  Limiting the number of shoppers allowed in our stores and providing markers every 6 feet when lines are long.
•  Staggering our registers at check out as to minimize congestion at the registers. We also have installed place markers for customers at our check out to help maintain a minimum distance of 6 feet apart.
•  We have installed acrylic shields at our registers for the protection of our staff and customers.

PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES WE ARE TAKING

•  We will be suspending $5 dinner beginning Thursday, March 19 until a time that is prudent to resume it. We have replaced it with $5 Grab and Go, available every Thursday all day long.
•  We have taken steps to minimize the distance between staff through scheduling and designated work stations to reduce the risk of contamination.
•  We have made thermometers available to staff and are requiring them to take their temperature daily.
•  Although we still have a tremendous dedication to protecting the health and well-being of our planet we believe that the immediate threat to public health is paramount and with that reasoning we are no longer allowing outside containers for food, beverages or bulk items.
•  We are temporarily suspending all self-serve food service areas. We now have a food safety certified deli staff to serve all hot bar food. Select prepackaged items, beverages and bakery will be available throughout the store.
•  Regular communications with our staff regarding the situation and providing them the most up-to-date safety guidance, as recommended by the CDC and other health officials.
•  Routine check-ins with staff to ensure good hygiene practices and giving them ample opportunities to regularly wash their hands.
•  Making sanitizer more available throughout our stores, including at registers both for you and for our employees. As of March 16 we have more than doubled our sanitizing stations at both stores with the addition of foaming sanitizer pumps in high use areas of the store.
•  Increasing our regular cleaning and sanitizing schedules throughout our stores, with extra attention on high-touch areas like our restrooms, doors, bulk departments, delis, hand baskets and carts. Every night we sanitize our carts and hand baskets for the next day and every hour we have ALL staff sanitize the area that they are working in.
•  At this time we are discontinuing all unsupervised and supervised food demos.

WHAT WE HAVE ALWAYS DONE AND CONTINUE TO DO

•  Our employees are trained to follow a strict set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) when handling products. These include detailed instructions on hand washing, the use of hand sanitizers, product considerations, and information on preventing foodborne illness and the spread of infection.
•  Many employees are Food Handler certified.  All food service employees are properly trained on food safety issues, regulations, and techniques to maintain a food safe environment.
•  The majority of Co-op employees work full-time, with industry-leading benefits. Wheatsville encourages employees to use their paid time off, stay home, and reduce the spread of illness.

Finally, we ask all of our members, shoppers, and employees to partner with us in this. No matter how many safety protocols we may have in place, we can’t control everyone that comes into our stores. WE ASK THAT IF YOU ARE FEELING ILL, PLEASE STAY HOME. We have a variety of services that can get you the product you need. These include Instacart and Favor. For more information on how you can help stop the spread of Coronavirus please visit https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/
If you would like to receive regular updates from Wheatsville please subscribe to our email list or follow us on social media.

AN UPDATE ON COVID-19: INFORMATION ABOUT WHEATSVILLE SOUTH LAMAR

On March 24, we learned that a staff member in our South Lamar store tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Upon receiving this news, we acted immediately to notify our team at the location. The staff member, who works in a non-customer-facing role, last worked on March 17. By the time the employee called in sick to their shift on March 18, noting symptoms of COVID-19, we had already implemented our deep clean of the entire department, which includes mandatory regular cleanings of workstations and high touch areas. 

Following guidance from public health authorities, Wheatsville identified all other team members who had close contact with the affected person and they are currently in self-quarantine until free of symptoms for 14 days. Our co-op has a competitive paid time off, and we’re supporting these employees as they self-quarantine, as well as working with all team members on a case-by-case basis to ensure they have the support they need.

We are, and have been, following all recommended guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and city, county, and state public health departments. Across Wheatsville locations, we require a temperature check of all staff before the start of their shift. Any team members experiencing fever or symptoms of respiratory illness are being advised to stay home and contact our HR department with any questions.

Wheatsville prides itself on its cleanliness and food safety standards, and we are doing everything we can to best serve our customers, care for our staff, and be a responsible member of our community. We have implemented rigorous cleaning practices throughout our stores, including hourly cleanings of high-impact/high-touch areas. Click here to learn more about the steps we are taking to protect employees and customers.

While the affected employee worked in a department with no contact with shoppers, we encourage customers who have questions to contact us at [email protected]

Keep it GREEN

Wheatsville has always been a green business leader - it's just one of the ways we, as a co-op, live up to Principle #7: Concern for Community.

GREEN ENERGY
Your co-op is part of Austin Energy’s Green Choice program which means the money we pay for utilities is used build wind farms and help Austin reach its goal of  55% renewable energy use by 2025!

20 TONS / MONTH
According to Break it Down, our recycling partner, we divert over 20 tons of cardboard, glass, plastic, metal, and food scraps between both stores each month!

100% RECOVERED FIBER
Our paper bags are made with 100% recovered fiber, 85% post consumer content.

$20 REBATE
Staff that bike to work 4x per month (8+ miles) earn a $20 monthly bike expense rebate.

KEEP IT SUNNY
If you look up at the ceiling at S.Lamar, you’ll notice about 57 bubbly looking lenses. These are called SolaTubes. They use highly reflective fiber optic tubes to direct sunlight into our store so that we don’t have to use as much electricity. During construction, these SolaTubes were very useful to help keep the job sight lit!

TO-GO
All of our deli-to go ware - boxes, plates, and napkins - are COMPOSTABLE - including utensils and straws!

SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD
All of our seafood is rated 'Best Choice' or  'Best Alternative' by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch List, and has been fished or farmed in ways that make less impact on the environment.

GREEN PARTNERS
We raised and donated $14,453 for Austin Parks Foundation in March of 2019, which helps keep our shared green spaces healthy and happy! We also host one of THE BEST breakfast stations in Austin on Bike to Work Day! JOIN US FRIDAY, MAY 17th!

BULK IT UP
Wheatsville offers bulk refills of wellness products like Dr.Bronner’s soaps, lotions and laundry detergent! Bonus points (and a high five) if you bring your own jars, containers and bags!

ODOR-FREE
Throughout the S.Lamar construction process, we chose noVOC or lowVOC building materials and paint in order to have an odor-free store.

WATERLESS
In the men’s room at S.Lamar we’ve installed a waterless urinal. This saves 1.5 gallons of water per flush! That’s means if we save 12 flushes per day, we save 6,552 gallons of water per year!

BOX IT UP
Way before Austin’s bag ban, we were offering recycled boxes and paper bags to customers. Our bags are made with 100% recovered fiber with a minimum of 85% post consumer content. They are printed with water-based inks, are Forest Stewardship Council for responsible use of forest resources.

YOU RECYCLE
We offer front-facing recycling and composting to customers, and our recycling partners at Break it Down say we’ve got the cities best sorters! They rarely see mistakes which in-turn helps them be more efficient.

RAINWATER
We also do things like rainwater capture to help us irrigate our planter boxes, use LED lights, installed low flow toilets and have added showers to S.Lamar in order to keep our bike riders pedaling

2nd Annual Big Co-op Fair & Owner Meeting

What a show! Our second annual BIG CO-OP FAIR was kicked off by our neighbors, The Ann Richards School Marching Band, Drum Line and Color Guard! Over 100 young women assembled in our S. Lamar parking lot and kept sunshine turned up to an ELEVEN for our BIG EVENT! DJs from KOOP took over for the rest of the afternoon, with a magical range of music that gave everyone a smile while getting their face painted or riding the Ferris wheel!

Inside the store, aisles were stuffed with 25+ of our favorite local vendors. We had longtime partners such as Celeste’s Best Cookie Dough (for real, the BEST), mmmpanadas dishing up savory pastries, La Riojana showing off their fair-trade, cooperative, and (soon to be official) organic wine, and Equal Exchange giving bites of some of their finest chocolates. We also welcomed some co-op newcomers that already have quite a following such as Mammoth Creamery low-carb ice cream, Bee Tree Farms local goat cheese, Treasured Earth gluten-free desserts and so many more!

OWNERS got to hear from our Board of Directors about the direction and health of our co-op at the Annual Owner Meeting, meet this year’s Board Candidates, and participate in a Q&A. Our monthly non-profit round-up campaign partners were there too – each one showing the impact we make when work together to support our community.

Kids loved taking a peek behind the scenes on our Bakehouse, Produce, Chill, and Packaged Department tours. From juice to dough – everyone loved seeing how the food we all love gets on the shelf. For others, learning more about our history from co-op docents gave a deeper appreciation for how far we’ve come!

THANK YOU for JOINING US! If you were inspired by something YOU saw at the fair be sure to pass it on. TOGETHER we make great things happen!

Our Green Features

“The environment is where we all meet; where all have a mutual interest; it is the one  thing all of us share.” —Lady Bird Johnson

As a community owned co-op, we take our Cooperative Values & Principles very seriously. We fulfill the ideals of Principle #7, Concern for Community, in a number of different ways – one of which is being a good environmental steward. Through thoughtful, small daily actions – such as sorting our trash from recycling and compost after we eat – we can make a HUGE impact.
 
Thank you for doing your part – bringing your containers to refill, remembering your reusable bags, sorting your trash, composting, planting gardens, collecting rainwater, and for supporting your co-op!
 
Here are some things your co-op does to stay green:

1. We recycle metal, cardboard, plastic, paper, glass, food scraps, and cooking oil
2. Break it Down, our local recyclers, estimate that we divert 20 tons of cardboard each month between both stores. That’s the equivalent of 3 elephants!

3. Break it Down also estimates that we divert 100 tons of recycling (cardboard, glass, and plastic) each month between both stores. That’s the same as 50 full-grown cows!

4. Wheatsville is part of Austin Energy’s Green Choice program which uses the money we pay for utilities to build wind farms and help Austin reach its goal of 55% renewable energy use by 2025!
5. S. Lamar has 57 SolaTubes which use highly reflective fiber optic tubes to direct sunlight into our store so that we don’t have to use as much electricity. 

6. Ceiling lights at S. Lamar adjust intensity depending on the amount of natural sunlight coming in from our SolaTubes.
7. We only buy energy efficient coolers, refrigeration units, and equipment.

8. We offer bulk refills of wellness products like Dr.Bronner’s soaps, lotions and laundry detergent!

9. We use noVOC or lowVOC building materials and paint in order to have an odor-free store. 

10. Our waterless urinal at S. Lamar saves 1.5 gallons of water per flush! 12 flushes per day saves 6,552 gallons of water per year!

11. Our rainwater collection tanks at Guadalupe give us enough water to irrigate all of our landscaping!

12. Our paper bags are made with 100% recovered fiber, minimum of 85% post consumer content, and are printed with water-based inks.

13. Lots of bike parking, showers for staff at S. Lamar, a bike to work benefit for staff members who ride 8+ hours/month. 

14. Concrete parking lots that absorb less sunlight than asphalt and reflect less heat, light paint colors, and awnings help keep us cool through the hot summers.

15. Email receipts, double-sided receipts, and no receipts option significantly cut down the amount of paper register tape (BPA free) we have to buy.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Repeat

As a co-op grocer, one of our guiding principles, Principle #7, is Concern for Community. For us, it’s important for us to find ways to recycle and divert as much of our reclaimable resources as we can in order to help create a more sustainable store and city.  Break it Down, a local recycling operation started in 2009 by Jeff Paine and Melanie MacFarlane, has helped us achieve our goals for many years. They have a 99% recycled rate and accept and sort plastic, glass, cardboard, paper, and inedible food scraps from local businesses, offices, condos and homes.

Reclaimed Resources for BOTH stores:

• PLASTIC, GLASS + OTHER: approx 8 tons/month

• CARDBOARD: approx. 20 tons/month

“Bales are delivered to a paper mill just outside of Dallas. There the boxes are pulverized and reformed into long spools of cardboard. Those spools are shipped to a plant in California that cuts and prints the recycled cardboard to fill custom box orders. The boxes can then be shipped to businesses all across the country.” - Break it Down

Allen Schroeder from Break it Down picking up recycled cardboard bales.

• COMPOST  approx. 15 tons per month

Break It Down partners with Organics By Gosh, a composting facility on East MLK. After grinding and curing, the finished compost is bagged and sold at retailers. Just look for the Organics By Gosh name on the bag and know that a tiny bit of your co-op is in there!

Compost drums are emptied, readied for curing. Photo courtesy of Allen Schroeder

• FOOD RECOVERY: approx 4,000 lbs. per month

In addition to diverting tons of resources for the waste stream, we also contribute to food recovery efforts. Alan Shroeder, our Food Recovery Coordinator , connects edible fresh foods with people that need it. On a weekly basis, we donate upwards of 1,000 pounds of fresh fruits, veggies, bread, and dairy to local community organizations around the city, including Blackland Community Center and South Austin Community Center. Alan started his food recovery efforts in 2008 and received a grant from Bread for the Journey to help get him started.

Recovered food ready for distribution. Allen Schroeder

• If you are interested in getting your businesses, office, or home into the recycling act contact Break it Down for more information.
• Read more about our storewide recycling efforts!
• RSVP for our FREE City of Austin Home Composting Class
  Saturday, April 23rd at 10am, 4001 S.Lamar in the Community Room
  By taking the class and reducing the size of your garbage can, you are eligible for a $75 REBATE on a home composting system. Each attendee will get a countertop compost bin for attending!

Staff Satisfaction & Compensation

Open Letter to Wheatsville Staff, Members and Shoppers:

Wheatsville’s management and Board of Directors take wage issues and overall staff satisfaction very seriously and proactively check in with staff to make sure the co-op is meeting our employees’ needs. The management team became aware of wage dissatisfaction a few months ago through a regularly scheduled third party staff satisfaction survey.

We care deeply about our staff and their happiness, and leadership has been working on an action plan to address and remedy this challenging and important issue since receiving that feedback. We started rolling out the plan this month and look forward to continue working with our staff members to reach a resolution.

We’ve also recently become aware of a petition seeking to pay a living wage at Wheatsville, as well as some letters expressing grievances against some of Wheatsville’s employment practices. While we do our best to be transparent and available, we apologize that we missed the mark and disappointed some staff members.

We believe that our cooperative runs best with openness and honesty, and we are committed to improving staff satisfaction around compensation at Wheatsville.

Sincerely,

Dan Gillotte
Wheatsville Food Co-op
Chief Executive Grocer

Eden Foods Decision

The results of our annual election are in and as of January 1st, 2015, Wheatsville Food Co-op will no longer sell any Eden Foods products or use them in our recipes. The issue of whether or not to remove Eden Foods products was decided by a democratic vote as outlined in our bylaws. Below is the final verified vote tally from our Annual Election.

We know that some of our customers have been enjoying Eden Foods products for years and will be disappointed to learn that we will no longer stock that brand. As a cooperatively owned retail grocery, we abide by the rules mutually agreed upon in our bylaws and the collective decision reached by our owners.  We appreciate the effort and time it took members of the co-op to bring this issue to a vote and are very proud of the cooperative and democratic process used to make the final decision.

We have included a recap outline of the petition process that led to this decision and have included answers to frequently asked questions below.

Summary of the Issue

Eden Foods is one of the oldest natural and organic food companies in North America and has been an industry leader in maintaining organic standards, directly supporting North American family farms, and providing Non-GMO assurance on all products. The brand’s line of BPA-free canned beans, condiments, soymilk and pastas has been carried at Wheatsville Food Co-op since the 80’s.

On March 20, 2013, Eden Foods filed suit against the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, which administers the Affordable Care Act, for the right to opt out of contraceptive coverage for its employees.  Eden Foods objects to a provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires companies, if they choose to offer health insurance to their employees, to include coverage of a wide array of contraceptive choices.

Here’s an excerpt from Eden Foods’ statement on the issue:
We believe in a woman's right to decide, and have access to, all aspects of their health care and reproductive management. This lawsuit does not block, or intend to block, anyone's access to health care or reproductive management. This lawsuit is about protecting religious freedom and stopping the government from forcing citizens to violate their conscience. We object to the HHS [Health & Human Services] mandate and its government overreach.

Wheatsville’s Response

In response to Eden’s stance, some customers inquired if the co-op would stop selling Eden Foods products. As a cooperative grocery, Wheatsville doesn't stop selling product in response to any political issues. The co-op serves a very diverse customer base and there are individuals on both sides of any issue. We believe that we can best serve our community by continuing to focus on providing healthy foods.

The co-op encourages customers to vote, on this and other issues, with their dollars by supporting those companies they like and believe in.  When (for any reason) products don’t sell, the co-op stops carrying them.

If the products in question, such as Eden Foods, continue to sell and see no significant decrease in support, the decision on whether or not to stop selling the product must be made through the petition process. This process is outlined in our bylaws as a way for owners to address issues like these in an open and democratic manner.

Petition and Election

By August 1st, 2014 Wheatsville members had gathered the necessary 500 owner signatures to submit the petition to the Board of  Directors. The required signatures were received and verified and so the issue was put to a vote in our recent election.

The co-op presented both sides of the issue and asked  owners whether or not the co-op should stop selling Eden Foods products.

After all the votes were verified and tabulated, the final vote was in favor of removing Eden Foods products from the co-op.

FAQ

• When will Eden Foods stop being available?
  The co-op will sell down current stock and not place any reorders. The co-op will stop purchasing Eden Foods products for sale or use in recipes by 1/1/15.

• Can a shopper still place special orders for the product?
  No. The co-op will no longer place special orders for Eden Foods products.

• Will the co-op still cook with Eden products?
  No. The co-op will not use Eden Foods for ingredients in any of our housemade products.

• Will the co-op have replacement products available?
  The co-op has identified all the items that would be affected by the vote and have made accommodations to find comparable replacements as available.

• Can Eden Foods ever come back?
  The brand may come back to the co-op by the same process that took it off. A member petition would have to filed and endorsed by 500+ owners. The issue would then be put back on the general election ballot for a vote.

• Have any other similar petitions been passed by owner election?
  Back in the 1980’s a petition was launched to not stock any wellness or bodycare products that were tested on animals. The petition passed and we can now say that we have a 100% cruelty-free wellness department.