Fiddleheads Builds Sustainability At Fiddleheads, sustainability matters. Walking through our aisles, you’ll see shelves filled with local and organic produce, coffees grown on farms which protect biodiversity, and household products made with renewable and recycled materials. In every department, our buyers ask, “Is this product good for our environment? Is it safe for our pollinators? Is it healthy for our producers and consumers?” We know that the choices we make today will have repercussions for generations to come. We Walk the Walk Our commitment to sustainability begins with our own practices. 100% of the electricity we purchase is generated by wind farms and supplied by Arcadia Power. We save pounds of edible food scraps each day for the pigs at Firefly Farms in North Stonington. We give other compostable materials to one of our owners, Bob Stuller, who provides mountains of compost to FRESH community gardens and other local gardeners. We’re also avid recyclers: check out our new infographics about recycling and composting in the café. We Provide Sustainable Options for You If you’d like to reduce your carbon footprint, consider this: the transportation sector produces a quarter of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, and our food system is partly to blame. The average apple in the United States travels over 1,700 miles from orchard to market! At Fiddleheads, we offer an incredible selection of apples grown within 100 miles of the co-op. And it’s not just our produce that’s local; many of our baked goods, dairy products, eggs, beers, honeys, meats, tofus, soaps and skin care products are local, too. Or maybe you’d like to reduce the amount of packaging you use. In that case, you can buy grains and beans, coffees and teas, olive oil and more from our bulk department. We even offer bulk laundry detergent and bulk beauty materials. By buying products from our distributors in bulk and allowing customers to portion what they need it greatly reduces packaging waste. We also carry a multitude of items designed to reduce waste. Have you ever wished you didn’t have to throw out an entire product because a single component had worn out? Our Preserve toothbrushes and Full Circle cleaning utensils—made from recycled plastics and sustainable bamboo—come with replaceable heads. Our Decomposition notebooks are made from 100% recycled paper. BNTO Canning Jar Lunchbox Adaptors turn a mason jar into a lunchbox, complete with separate compartments for wet and dry ingredients—and it was co-invented by former New Londoner Josh Resnikoff. Protecting Pollinators & Eliminating Pesticides At Fiddleheads, we know that our food system depends on a healthy population of bees, butterflies and other pollinators. That’s one reason we buy from organic, CT NOFA and Integrated Pest Management-verified (IPM) farms. For example, many of our apples come from Champlain Orchards in Champlain Valley VT, which relies on biological controls like natural predators and mating disruption rather than bee-harming pesticides. Our cotton products such as canvas bags, Eat More Kale tee-shirts and Maggie’s socks are made with organic cotton. We also carry a wide assortment of shade-grown, organic coffees and chocolates. By using sustainable farming techniques, coffee and cocoa farmers not only protect pollinators and migrating birds, they also mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon. All of our organic, fair trade Equal Exchange coffees, teas and chocolates are on sale for Fair Trade Month October! Sustainability is the Foundation for Everything We Do We choose to be locally owned and controlled so that we will continue to benefit Southeastern Connecticut. We choose to prioritize buying from local vendors in order to build a resilient, sustainable local economy. We choose to offer eco-friendly products because we know that our health relies on our planet’s health. We’re here for the long term well-being of our community and our environment. That’s what sets co-ops apart!
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The FernFiddleheads Food Co-op's Weekly Newsletter Archives
November 2016
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