Did you know that your local food co-op has it's very own food hub? That we operate as an aggregation point for local farmers, ranchers and producers of hand made artisanal goods? Did you know that you can place bulk special orders with all of our vendors and order bags of organic grains, coconut water, oilve oil and so much more!?
Local Food Hubs help to create sustainable food systems by creating better access to fresh, nutritious, local food while paying the producers more on the dollar than any other wholesaler in town. In 2015 DROPP paid our local producers $.80 cents on every dollar that we purchased. Our grand total of local and regional direct goods was $326,569, a 12% growth over 2014! This number would have been even higher if there was enough readily available local and organic produce to fill up all of our contract slots.
A third of a million dollars is a hearty figure but we know that there is a much higher capacity for local goods to be made and distributed not only at our co-op but also in dozens of other local serving food establishments in the city of Reno. Most of our members and patrons shop at the co-op to find the highest quality local and organic goods in town. We buy just about everything that we can but consumer demand calls for more. WE NEED YOU TO GROW FOOD and we need you to tell your favorite restaurants to buy their ingredients local through Northern Nevada's only food hub: dropp.coop.
The 2016 farmer contract planning has begun and the availability has barely scratched the surface of our conservative projections. This is the year of DROPP and things are getting real. We are looking for serious growers and producers of all ages and skillsets to join us on Northern Nevada's first ever local food hub advisory board. We need YOU to help build a sustainable local food system in Northern Nevada. Are you in? Let's grow this!
Almost all of your co-op's weekly green waste (organic leftovers) is getting composted into rich soil at '2075' - in the be the change neighborhood. This effort kindled the emergence of 'The Rot Riders'. If you have some juice for a deeper relationship with composting, please contact them!
Come join Label GMO Nevada and the co-op's Local Food & Sustainability Coordinators Jacob Nachel and Andrew Yokom on January 27th at 9:00am. Hear them discuss the issues with GMOS with our Reno City Council members. Public attendance, comments and support -- highly encouraged! :) Let our city leaders know what you think about genetically altered foods in our local food supply.
