New Website is up!!!

We have a new website!

After several months of struggling to figure out wordpress - we have given up and moved on to something a bit easier. Very happy with the result! Lots of information is up there, and we will work hard to keep it updated and accurate.
www.yourlocalmarketcoop.com

Look at us now! (9 months later)

June 2011

It has been just under 9 months since we've opened and a lot has changed! If you have not been in the store for a while – you will be delighted to see not only a larger selection of locally grown and locally produced groceries, but our take-out counter is much more efficient and looking beautiful!


With the help of the Carrot Commons' Carrot Cache fund (they purchased $5000 worth of YLMC non-voting shares) we have been able to purchase additional equiptment to make our take-out counter more efficient, profitable and able to support one full-time employee.

The ability to support additional employment is very important to YLMC. As a workers' co-operative it is our primary purpose to provide empowering employment to our members. As our business expands we hope to be a sustainable source of employment to many individuals. This is why we are expanding into various areas of value-added items.

We feel that there is a limit to how much we can ethically mark up produce and groceries, and support members employment with the value-added items such as bread, take-out lunches, baked goods... and more to come! For our groceries we have a standard 35-40% mark up (depending on wastage, whether we have to pay for gas to pick up, etc)

 Most Grocery stores tend to have a 42-100% mark up (depending on items), so you may notice that our produce is often less expensive. When our prices are matched or slightly higher than supermarkets it is usually because they can afford to buy in larger quantities to get better prices. We have also heard from farmers about unethical practices to lower the market value of produce by these large food retailers. (to drive the price down on produce we have heard that large food retailers request the same items from many farmers. When the produce is ready to sell there is an abundance and farmers are forced to sell for less)

At YLMC, we let the farmers decide the price. We do our standard mark ups, and let YOU, the customer decide. If it sells, we buy more. If it does not sell due to the price, we do not buy more.

While we were setting up, one farmer told us "You're going to lose your shirts for 35%". Now, this is probably true if we were only selling produce and groceries. When you buy produce and groceries at YLMC, you are:

a) supporting local farmers or producers; and

b) helping us cover the costs of being open (not including wages)

When you buy our bread, baked goods, take-out meals, prepared dips and salsas, (and more coming soon!) you are supporting our employment... and 

supporting the possibility for additional members to have sustainable empowering employment!

THANK YOU!

March 2012 - Still room to grow!

New Board Member!

Your Local Market Co-op Board of Directors welcomes a new board member, 

Shauna Thomas.

[photo to come]

As a co-operative corporation, Your Local Market Co-op has a board of directors who helps guide the direction of the co-op.

When we started to co-op, only members could sit on the board of directors. [Members of a workers' co-operative must be employees of the co-op.] After several months of non-stop learning we decided to acknowledge our deficiencies and look outside for expertise.

recent display at YLMC

Shauna is a librarian at the Stratford Public Library (you may have noticed our recent display). Over the past eight months has shopped and volunteered at the co-op, helped with our participation at Savour Stratford 2011 and been generally 'on board' with everything our co-operative stands for.

Our board can consist of 5-9 board members. We currently have 5: Shauna, and the four members (Drea, Chris, Heather & Katelyn) The board is elected by members, and has responsibly over policies of the co-op within limitations set out in our articles and bylaws. The Board uses YLMC's vision and purpose to make decisions in the best interest of the co-operative.

If you are interested in sitting on the board or have an interest in participating  with the co-op in another way,
please talk to a member in store!

The board meets for quarterly meeting, as well as occasional special meetings.

Celebrating just over One Year in bread.

It has been just over one year since co-op members have been selling fresh baked handmade bread!

 

 

Chris's experimenting at home December 2010

Last January, Chris started baking bread to sell at the Slow Food Market and raise money for Stratford Urban Farming Experiment.

Your Local Sourdough Shilling January 2012

 It has been quite the journey...

baguettes

 

Chris got up very early every Sunday morning and set off for Revel Caffe, where Anne had kindly made a barter with him for kitchen time. Stratford Urban Farming Experiment would then sell a selection of buns and loaves to folks at the market.

Over the next few months Chris worked on new recipes, but quickly outgrew the space in Revel's Kitchen.

At this time, Shawn at Simple Fish and Chips was in need of brioche buns. He offered a trade – kitchen time on Sunday mornings for brioche buns. Chris had not yet made brioche before so experimented for a few weeks until he learned some tricks.

Selling out every week at market, Chris soon reached his capacity – even with the larger kitchen. Katelyn came along who offered to help in the early hours in exchange for learning about baking bread. But soon enough again they reached capacity.

 

All the while we had been meeting to start up a co-operative grocery store and by the time June came and the Slow Food Market moved outdoors, our kitchen at 129 Downie Street was set up and Stratford Urban Farming Experiment rented the kitchen from the co-op to continue to fund-raise over the summer.

Since then Chris and Katelyn have been working hard to add new recipes to Your Local Market Co-op's collection.

Here's to the co-op developing more bakers and more baked goods...

Local Applebutter Pancakes

Local Pancake Recipe (no sugar required!)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup flour

2 tbsp apple sauce or apple butter (Wellesley's available at Your Local Market Co-op)

2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 egg

2/3 cups milk

Mix dry ingredients in bowl.

Mix in egg & apple sauce or apple butter.

Mix in milk gradually.

Fry and enjoy with apple syrup or maple syrup and seasonal fruits.

Yummy Tempeh Recipe

One delicious locally produced good regularly on our shelves comes from Henry's Gourmet Tempeh (Kitchener, Ontario)

Here is a recipe to try:

Baked Tempeh

Ingredients:

5-6 cloves garlic, crushed

2-3 tablespoons soy sauce

225g Tempeh

oil

water

salt & pepper

Heat Oven to 375

First mix the garlic, soy sauce and salt with enough water to make a thin paste.

Cut Tempeh into sticks or small cubes and place some in the sauce to marinate for a few minutes.

Lay Tempeh on baking sheet and cook in oven for 15-20 minutes

Serve with stir fried vegetables for a yummy nutritious meal!

Make Your Own Yogurt!

Here is a recipe given to us for homemade Yogurt - Thanks, Aunt Judy!

3 litres of homo milk - Harmony Organic works very well!
375 ml Hewitt’s cream – optional (other brands contain loads of additives)
¾ cup plain Hewitts yogurt with active cultures
(If you want to make a smaller batch the culture to milk ratio is 2 to 4 Tablespoons of yogurt with active culture for every 4 cups of milk)

It is really handy to have a meat thermometer that shows temperatures between 70 F and 200 F. This way you can make sure that your incubating temperature doesn’t get too high or too low.

You will need:
a large stainless steel pot or preferably a large glass stovetop safe pot.
Large glass bowl for incubating
Glass or plastic containers for storing yogurt in the fridge

Constantly stirring, bring the milk to a boil or almost to a boil is close enough as long as you get the temperature over 115 F (if using raw unpasteurized milk you have to bring it to a boil).
If you boiled the milk in a stainless steel pot pour the contents into a glass bowl large enough to hold all the milk otherwise the milk and the steel react with each other.

Don’t incubate in metal or plastic.

Let the milk cool back down to between 95 F and 115 F. This is important. ( Too hot and it kills the bacterial culture; too cold and it will incubate as sour milk.)

I cover the bowl while the milk cools and stir it when I am checking the temperature with the thermometer. This can take a couple of hours if you brought the milk close to a boil. When the milk has cooled down enough add the plain yogurt and stir it in. I incubate mine in the oven with the oven light on. Sometimes I turn the oven on just for a few minutes to kick start the rise in temperature.

Check every half hour or 45 minutes to make sure it is not getting too hot or cold.

I use the meat thermometer to check the oven temp. It is more accurate than the oven reading and most ovens don’t register temperature below 170 F. If the temperature does look like it is starting get too hot just open the oven and let some of the heat escape.

About 3 hours later check if the yogurt is set by tilting the container.

If for some reason your batch of yogurt fails to incubate you probably made a mistake with temperature (too hot or cold). Don’t throw the milk out! Just reheat it back to the 95 F to 115 F and add the yogurt culture again. As long as you are careful about the temperature you will always have yogurt.

There are other ways to incubate the milk… in a box with a light bulb, using a heating pad, gas oven with a pilot light, a crock pot, or maybe even sunlight. The most important thing is to keep the temperature in the correct range.