The story of a unique Southeast Portland grocery store and the perils of climate and COVID-19 crises
The Store on the Corner
In the middle of a quaint neighborhood in Southeast Portland on the corner of SE 21st Ave. and SE Tibbetts St., a tall, unassuming, residential style building stands. Colored by natural wooden siding and organic decor and flanked by trees and a stone courtyard full of plant displays and seating, it feels almost reminiscent of a summer camp. The interior is full to the brim with foodstuffs, but not crowded. The most eye-catching corner is a cornucopia of red, white, and yellow onions, fluffy bunches of leafy greens, pyramids of crisp pink and green apples, and a myriad of other fruits and veggies, all neatly nestled into their particular spots. The other walls are lined with local healthful food and drink and a floor to ceiling bulk section of every dry good one could fathom. The people are as warm and inviting, willing to strike up conversation with newcomers and familiars alike. Most notably, they are all admirably passionate about this tall, unassuming building and what it stands for.
Like many other small businesses over the past two years, this store on the corner and the people within have faced a tidal wave of challenges. From sweltering heat waves and stock shortages, to strains on workers and wavering community ties, they’ve seen it all. But, throughout these trials they’ve stood tall, grounded in a foundation of worker solidarity and mutual love and trust with the Portland community.
Considering Community Before Profits
Born out of the new wave of co-ops of the 1960s, The People’s Food Co-op was initially formed as a food buying club by Reed College students interested in having access to whole foods. In 1970, it was transformed into the non-profit organization that it is today as the “People’s Food Store”. After nearly three decades of on and off operation, in 1998 People’s transitioned from having general managers to having a management team under which profitability, staff turnover, financial management, and wages improved tenfold. This move towards collective management set the stage for the restructuring of their business model to be based around elected representative bodies in 2011, as it has remained since, as a collision of democracy and retail.
This structure is called a cooperative, a model in which the business is entrenched in its community, insofar as it is owned and managed by those who both work for and patronize the organization. In this format, one can become a shareholder or “member-owner” and gain access to patronage dividends, discounts on products, and vote in and run for election for the board of directors.
Naturally this kind of collectively owned business is driven by the values of its community, unlike its corporate counterparts that answer only to a widely dispersed, impersonal group of profit motivated shareholders. People’s member-owners declare that their take on the co-op model was conceived with equitable realities for the community as the foremost priority, stating that “our store is laid out and built in a way that considers our community before profits”. This declaration of care for their community is evidenced by the fact that People’s profits go to member-owners and the only amounts retained are recycled into the co-op for wages, upkeep, renovations, and mutual aid donations.
“Our store is laid out and built in a way that considers our community before profits.”
People’s Food Co-op
Given their cooperative, non-hierarchical business model, the People’s Food Co-op’s foundation is grounded in the intrinsic and explicit value of their workers and member-owners. They receive privileges foreign to the average grocery store worker, such as the ability to vote on wage levels and benefit packages on a yearly basis and an equal starting wage for all positions of $17 an hour (which is notably higher than the $14 an hour Portland Metro minimum wage). Further, the board is working towards providing a living wage in Portland—a staggering $25 an hour—in order to make the co-op a sustainable workplace in a city that suffers one of the most rapid rates of increasing cost of living in the country. The co-op is also one of three brick and mortar pilots for the Oregon Food Bank’s Double Up Food Bucks program in Portland, in which those using SNAP to buy produce earn back a matching amount to buy more fresh fruits and vegetables
In addition to fair wages, member-owners are encouraged to come to board decision making meetings to give their input. Their counsel often focuses on individual experiences and the reevaluation of the store’s anatomy and processes. In this effort, member-owners have formed various focus groups, such as the Anti-White Supremacy Working Group, People of Color Caucus, and Social Justice and Equity working group. Five year staff member and Marketing and Design Manager at People’s, Gabi De León said that having the space to share BIPOC specific grievances and the opportunity to bring meaningful changes to the table has been a really powerful experience for her in the workplace and have cultivated a safe space for both co-op workers and community members alike
People’s also has strict buying guidelines that prioritize affordability and moral soundness, favoring vendors whose politics and procedures are aligned with the Co-op’s, especially in terms of workers rights. Recently, De León spoke of their boycott of the Amy’s Kitchen products because of the company’s rampant union busting, unsafe working conditions, and denial of bathroom breaks and access to drinking water to workers. She said that this sort of economic activism is not an uncommon occurrence for People’s, and that they are doing everything within their scope to show their support for Amy’s workers, down to contacting the union working with Amy’s employees.
One might expect standards like these to be followed only at upscale stores like New Seasons or Whole Foods, whose locations are scarce in low and low-middle income communities and prices are infeasible for the average consumer. This is not the case at People’s. They believe that no individual should be priced out of ethical consumption, which is why they boast competitive prices for all food items. Further, the co-op utilizes a trust based Food for All program that provides discounts for patrons going through financial hardship, and is one of three brick and mortar pilots for the Oregon Food Bank’s Double Up Food Bucks program in Portland.
No individual should be priced out of ethical consumption
People’s and The Summer 2021 Heatwave
Over the summer of 2021, the heat wave and fires in Oregon proved devastating all the way up the supply chain, impacting co-op workers, distributors, and producers alike. Temperatures peaked at a feverish 116 degrees fahrenheit, nearly unprecedented for the temperate summers of Portland, regrettably the third least air-conditioned city in the nation. Sidewalks sizzled, stores became saunas, and crops were scorched in the field from late June through mid July.
Many people couldn’t get to work, much less leave the house because of the intense heat, and farmers suffered notable cutbacks in produce supply as the crops overrippened in a matter of a day’s time without constant irrigation. Overall quality of local produce worsened, and many suppliers stopped delivering altogether because of the heat.
Portland summers normally yield a prolific blueberry harvest, allowing for a huge sale at the Co-op. This sale was nearly halved this past summer as their suppliers struggled to produce at the same rate, resulting in shortages of both fresh and frozen blueberries through the rest of the year and into 2022. PDX Co-op Collab (a joint project of food cooperative providing Portland co-op exclusive products) exclusive Ash Street Wine had to source their grapes from California instead of Oregon for the first time because much of the Willamette Valley grape crop was wiped out in the heat.
Because of the increasing intensity of climate change effects on the Pacific Northwest, these conditions are likely not going to be an isolated event. In preparation for this, the co-op has begun future strategizing to be better equipped for all the summers to come. De León mentioned that they are exploring delivery partnerships as an option to get food to people who may not be able to commute to get their groceries, as well as allocating funds to donate to organizations that are making sure people are being fed during climate disasters. People’s biggest challenge, according to De León, is “knowing when to independently innovate solutions and when to support others in their missions rather than stretching the co-op’s resources too thin”.
“People’s biggest challenge [in the heatwave]… is knowing when to independently innovate solutions and when to support others in their missions”
Gabi De León, Five-year employee at the People’s Food Co-op
The Pandemic and People’s
On top of these climate related challenges, the pandemic has also been a major hurdle for the People’s Food Co-op. De León recounted her experience working through the genesis of COVID-19 and the chaos that ensued, “the board started planning one week before the shutdown in 2020, and we all sat around the table and were like ‘what are we going to do?’, we knew this virus was going to be something big”. De León was right. And like most grocery type stores in the first few weeks, People’s experienced a mammoth surge of panic shopping. Products started zipping off the shelves as a blaze of patrons flew in and out of the store at lightning speed, generating a frenzied energy so intense that front-facing employees rapidly began to burn out.
This inferno of frantic shopping proved wildly unsustainable for both the workers and supply. In response, the board decided to enforce shopping boundaries: a ten in store customer cap, physical distancing, and requiring both shoppers and workers to wear masks. The response to this from the community was mixed. Some were displeased with the new measures, declaring that the store would never see a cent of theirs again so long as they had to comply with the new rules. De León said that the customer loss was considerable. However, there were many that chose to stand behind staff and the store, many were longtime member-owners and patrons who sought to uplift this community pillar.
Because the Co-op’s first priority is protecting the physical and mental health of the staff, the board moved to allow staff to work from home if possible, and even to take a leave of absence without repercussions. De León was included in those choosing to work from home and switched to part time. She stepped away from in person work for four months and worked only ten hours a week remotely and like the rest of the staff, received emergency paid time off throughout 2020 and 2021.
This internal support of co-op workers was bolstered by strong community support, particularly through the “Round Up at the Register for Staff Support Fund”, that was split equally between all staff and made enough for three separate payouts. Despite this, People’s lost a lot of staff over 2020 and 2021 because of both pandemic and non-pandemic related issues, and they experienced difficulty hiring in 2021. However, De León says that “as of early 2022 nearly all open positions have been filled by really solid staff and the co-op is in a really stable place”.
Hardship and Community Love and Trust
This stability, while partially a product of a bit of luck, is largely a result of the community oriented cooperative structure. The store is at once both a place where people go to work, fulfill their grocery needs, and to be in conversation with other Portland residents and the co-op itself about topics impacting the community. Because of this special relationship, People’s has been able to garner strong support from community members in moments of need—like the pandemic and the heatwave—with the caveat that with more trust, comes more accountability. De León commented that the co-op is held to higher standards than chain grocery stores because of the direct answerability to their patrons and member-owners as opposed to a corporate office. Over the past five decades, this ongoing conversation and accountability has enabled People’s to facilitate mutual love and trust with the people of Portland, and De León claims that this has served as their greatest asset in overcoming climate and pandemic related challenges. At the end of the day, the co-op is as reliant on the community as the community is reliant on it, and to be without this bond could have spelled doom for People’s in these taxing times.
At the end of the day, the co-op is as reliant on the community as the community is reliant on it.
So despite these two years of hardship, the doors of the store on the corner remain wide open, inviting to all. It remains a space where longtime patrons can spend hours picking through the milky white and warm brown eggs to find the perfect dozen without feeling rushed or self conscious. A space where one may use a crumpled brown paper bag with countless bulk codes crossed out and rewritten to get their fill of dried fruits, nuts, and grains. A space where anyone may feel welcome to satisfy their whole foods and community needs.