Latest eNews
July 2010
Something
to say?
To send a question, a comment or a suggestion about the co-op, including the website, please click here.
Moving?
When you move house, change phone numbers or email addresses, click here to email them to the co-op.
Fruit+veg availability
To see what's in stock right now in fruit+veg click here.
Food grants to community groups
Alfalfa House offers monthly food grants to community and activist groups with similar objectives to help them with food costs for special events such as conferences, workshops and public forums. To view details of the scheme, click here.
Passing on
the true cost
of EFTPOS
Businesses that provide an EFTPOS facility are charged a fee for each transaction. Those fees cost the co-op around $500 a month and so rather than include this cost in our product markups, as other businesses do, the co-op applies a small surcharge on both credit card and debit card (e.g., VisaDebit) transactions and on EFTPOS (savings or cheque) transactions. Applying the charge is fairer than extending the cost to cash shoppers.
Cockroach treatments
Here are some simple preventative steps to make our homes less attractive to the cockroach, as well as six remedies that don't involve pesticides. More
Pests in
the pantry
More simple preventative steps to make our homes less attractive to other pests in the kitchen. More
The limits to brown rice
While we do have a stable supply of Australian-grown organic short-grain brown rice, Australian-grown organic long-grain brown rice is unavailable and there won't be any more for now. As there are quarantine restrictions on imported organic brown rice, we're stocking non-organic long-grain brown rice instead as well as a number of other rices, most of which are Fair Trade and grown more sustainably in Thailand. To read more about the global rice shortage, click here.
Peanut butter in crisis
The co-op has run out of Australian organic roasted peanuts to feed the peanut butter making machine. There's no more for the time being. Watch this space as to when they return.
Survey ’07
To read the results of the 2007 Members' Survey including all the comments, click here. (File size: 120KB)
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Bonsoy back on the shelves
updated June 1, 2010
After five months, a reformulated Bonsoy is back on the shelves. The new Bonsoy is free of the apparent cause of last December’s recall by federal food authorities – an extract of the iodine-rich seaweed, kombu. The original recipe had as much as 7000 micrograms of iodine per 250ml, seven times the established safe limit. Ingesting as little as 30ml (an eighth of a cup) a day would be enough for an adult to exceed the limit. Testing found that Bonsoy was the only product with excessive levels of iodine.
The recall was sparked by a report of a NSW cluster of nine adults aged 29 to 47, and one child, who’d consumed Bonsoy and had presented with thyroid problems. Between Dec. 23, 2009 and Mar. 15 this year, 38 cases of thyroid dysfunction were reported to public health units across Australia that are suspected to be associated with the consumption of Bonsoy. (Bonsoy was also recalled in the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong.)
Food Standards Australia New Zealand is now testing a range of beverages enriched with seaweed and other seaweed-containing products. Any, it says, found to have unsafe levels of iodine will also be recalled.
ABC News story
Field to Feast gets the nod
from the Herald
Hapi Fiefia's farm is a beautiful thing. Over row upon raised row, leaves and fronds in varied shades of green bake in the autumn sun. Here and there, a burst of colour emerges – the brilliant red of a chilli, the butter yellow and mauve of an almost tropical-looking blossom. “Okra flower,” Fiefia says, stopping to pick one. “You can stuff it like a zucchini flower. And you can eat the leaves as well.”
To read more of Joanna Savill's glowing piece in smh.com.au on Hapi and Cath's Field to Feast farm in south-west Sydney, click here. Field to Feast is one of the co-op's farmer-direct suppliers.
Free food. Yes it's true.
We’re trialling a new free food giveaway. Every morning food that can be eaten or processed that day will be given away for free! So come in at 11am (9am on Saturdays) and check out the free food down by the cost price section in the shop. It will be clearly labelled.
Extra reusable bags?
If you have extra reusable shopping bags you can donate them to Marrickville Council’s community BagShare. The BagShare reduces the use of plastic shopping bags in the Marrickville local government area by providing donated reusable shopping bags to local shops. That means if you forget your bag, you can borrow a BagShare bag and return it on your next shopping trip to any of the following.
• The Watershed, 218 King Street, Newtown Tuesday-Saturday 10am-4pm
• Marrickville Council Administrative Centre 2-14 Fisher Street, Petersham, Monday-Friday 8.30am-5pm
• Stanmore Out-of-School Hours Centre, cnr Holt and Cavendish Streets, Stanmore, Monday-Friday 7-9am, 3-6pm
• The Athena School, 26 Oxford Street, Newtown Monday-Friday
9am-5pm
If your work, school, or organisation would like to host a BagShare collection bin, call The Watershed on 9519 6366 or visit BagShare.
The perils of the plastic water bottle
You might think you’re doing the right thing by refilling that plastic PET water bottle you have cluttering up the reuse/recycle cupboard instead of buying a new one. You probably think it’s a good idea to extend its life by using it as your carry-around water bottle. Well, it may not be such a good idea after all. Read on
Feeding the 5000 in Trafalgar Square
by Bonnie Alter, London Dec. 17, 2009 via TreeHugger
Despite the rain, sleet and cold, hundreds waited in line for their free lunch of hot curried vegetables and toast in London's Trafalgar Square on Dec. 17. Others queued for free groceries, and others for fresh fruit smoothies. But it was a bit more than a soup kitchen. "Feeding the 5000", as it was called, was organised to highlight the global problem of food waste.
All the food was donated by local farmers, packers and supermarkets. The fruit and veg had been rejected because they  were imperfectly shaped, past their sell-by date or the wrong size or shape. The veg were turned into hot vegetable curry and the fruits blended into smoothies, driven by a bicycle-powered blender.
The event was organised by FareShare and other charities as well as food activist Tristram Stuart, who was inspired by the Biblical story of the feeding of the five thousand.
In London alone, 750,000 slices of bread are thrown away by consumers every day, and 176,000 bananas – although household waste represents less than 40% of total food wastage. In fact retailers and manufacturers are responsible for most of it. The group This is Rubbish wants the UK government to introduce an obligation upon retailers to reduce food waste, whereby all retailers are required to report on the food waste they generate, with annual reports audited and publicised by an independent commission.
Food waste isn't confined to rich countries: even in places where people go hungry, farmers can lose up to a half of their crops because they lack the basic agricultural infrastructure to get it to market before it spoils.
Fareshare is Britain's largest food redistribution charity, collecting surplus food from supermarkets and manufacturers and delivering it to homeless shelters and other community centres.
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Would you like to volunteer?
Visit the volunteering page here.
Have your say
in running
the co-op
The Management Committee (MC), which comprises between four and seven members, oversees the co-op's financial management and general policy-making. All members are welcome to come to the monthly MC meetings and raise proposals and speak to them, although only MC members can vote. The MC meets the fourth Monday of the month.
A typical MC meeting agenda would include
- Attendance, Apologies
- Confirmation of and business arising from the previous minutes
- Membership:
new members, cancellations
- Staffing
- OH+S
- Reports: Finance, Co-op Coordinator, Stock, Staff meeting
- Current Matters
- Correspondence
- Other Matters
The next MC meeting is Monday August 23
from 7.30pm
Black Rose Bookshop
22 Enmore Road, Newtown
Vacancies on MC
There are two spots left on the Management Committee. We're particularly after someone with financial skills to act as Treasurer. But we welcome any level of involvement. If you'd like to be more involved in helping to shape the direction of the co-op, please contact us and an MC member will contact you or come along to the next meeting.
Make your
own cleaning products
if you've ever wanted to make your own household cleaners but didn't know what to use and how much, The Watershed has come up with a number of sure-fire recipes to deal with that hard-to-remove stain or to get that filthy stovetop sparkling as new. To view the impressive list of homemade recipes for Laundry Detergent, Oven Cleaner, Gunktion, Fridge+Freezer Cleaner, Spot Remover, All-Round Cleaner, Bathroom Cleaner, and Window+Mirror Cleaner, click here. The co-op stocks the base ingredients for these recipes.
What's that spud good for?
It's one of the most asked questions. And with so many varieties of potato available these days, it's hard to keep track of them all. To ease the burden on your memory, check out our Guide to Potatoes on our fruit+veg page by clicking here.
A guide to apples
Likewise with apples. With so many varieties it can be difficult to remember when the different ones are available. So we've come up with a guide similar to the one for potatoes. Check it out on our fruit+veg page by clicking here.
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