Since 1972 the WIC Program, which is meant to improve the nutrition of low-income pregnant women, breastfeeding women, and infants and children under the age of five, has remained unchanged. For decades the federal program has operated “WIC stores” which only sell food for vouchers issued by the state WIC program and do not accept any other form of payment. These stores have offered a very limited menial selection of fresher food choices to clients who often need such foods the most. Some have also criticized WIC for preventing small producers, retailers and nonprofits to participate in the effort to bring healthier foods to low-income families.

In the last month a flurry of discussion and activity has been
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In January 2008 I made two trips to New York to build bridges with important movements.

Green for All Planning Retreat: In early January I attended a planning retreat for Green for All in upstate New York. Green for All is a new initiative to “to help build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.” While I arrived at the retreat feeling skeptical, three days of explorative conversation and strategic planning with 30 extraordinary organizers, visionaries and leaders left me feeling that Green for All has the potential of being a very important movement.

Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY): I was able to keynote at the annual conference of NOFA-NY, an organization
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For years food justice organizations, urban agriculture projects and small farmers have been trying to figure out how to adapt the popular Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model to enable low-income people to participate and have access to healthy and fresh farm produce. While offering the usage of food stamps as a way of participating in a CSA seems like one obvious way of reducing the barrier for low-income consumers, the USDA harbors a host of restrictive regulations that make it very hard to use food stamps through CSAs. As a result of these regulatory barriers few efforts have been successful at making CSAs available to low-income participants.

A recent article posted on localharvest.com, an organic and local food website,
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People’s Grocery is a partner with Green for All in advancing a movement for green jobs and economic opportunities for low-income communities that help move our society towards greater sustainability through greener energy systems and food systems. Below is an announcement of a momentous and historic event being organized by Green for All. People’s Grocery is a sponsor of this event and will be present in Memphis in April.

THE DREAM REBORN
Honoring Dr. King’s Legacy • Celebrating Our New Leaders •
Creating Green Pathways Out of Poverty

April 4-6, 2008
Memphis Cook Convention Center, Tennessee,

A conference to Inspire, Educate, and Empower!

Join: Majora Carter, Green For All & Sustainable South Bronx; Van Jones, Green For All;
Rev. Yearwood Jr., Hip
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On Wednesday Feb. 13th at 12pm a very important event will be taking place to try to turn the direction of the 2007 Farm Bill in favor of farmers, urban folks and the environment. People will gather at the Farmers’ Market at UN Plaza to call upon House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Joe Baca and Dennis Cardoza, who are likely to sit on the Farm Bill conference committee, to pass a Fair and Healthy Food and Farm Bill as soon as possible that stops subsidizing corporate agribusiness at the expense of public health and invests our tax dollars into creating a sustainable, healthy, community-driven and just food system.

This is such an important issue right now
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PCC Natural Markets, the oldest consumer cooperative grocery store in the United States (founded in 1952), is a chain of stores in the Seattle region. Over the last 6 months I have been able to talk with and learn from some of the key leadership at PCC Natural Markets. They have been generous to give us advice as we develop our own business model for People’s Grocery Market. I’m very impressed and inspired by PCC’s strong commitments to values of health, community and sustainability.

PCC has recently made another bold move that has impressed and inspired me even further. In late November they announced that they would eliminate high fructose corn syrup from their shelves. This is an incredible expression
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I will be a keynote speaker at the upcoming 26th annual Organic Farming and Gardening Conference hosted by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York.

Attendance at this conference is beginning to grow rapidly as awareness of organic and local food enter the mainstream. Once a conference almost exclusively attended by white farmers, the conference is increasing in diversity and in participation by urban residents and food justice organizations. This changing composition of conference goers points to a very positive trend in which people of historically divergent interests are beginning to converge and unify into a broader and more inclusive understanding of what it will take to build a movement to change the way our food system works.
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Folks mingling and getting their Grub on.

Chef Raashan did a cooking demonstration on how to make healthy sweet potato pie!

People’s Grocery youth peer educators rock a workshop.

A featured poet.

Jeannine Etter, Outreach Coordinator. The one who makes these parties happen.

Scooping up free and fresh produce from our farm

People’s Grocery is fortunate to receive financial support from some really creative, mission-driven businesses. Past examples of such creative support include Green Planet Properties, which gave 10% of its commission to People’s Grocery from the sale of local home, and the Wholes Foods, which selected People’s Grocery for its Nickels for Nonprofits Program at the new Oakland Whole Foods (we get five cents every time someone uses a cloth bag).

The latest addition to the list of mission-driven entrepreneurs that is supporting People’s Grocery is Stacee Gillelen, who is the founder and owner of
Dragonfly Designs, a local jewelry business that makes and sells “jewelry with a conscience”. Dragonfly Designs will donate 10% of all January on-line retail sales
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The U.S. grocery industry is splitting into two segments: those that sell luxury goods and those that sell cheap ones. Both Whole Foods Market (luxury) and Wal-Mart (cheap) are among America’s fastest-growing stores (although they have slowed down a bit recently). As a result of this split between luxury and discount retails, there is a space opening in the middle section of the pricing spectrum that is not being served by many retailers. Current trends indicate that this middle pricing area will be further abandoned as both luxury and discount retailing grow as an overall portion of the food retail industry.

The resulting retail gap that is being created in the center of the pricing spectrum is likely going
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