I have been bringing in beers that pair well with food, come from independent breweries, and get rave reviews/awards from their peers. Frankly, I have to like them too. I am really pleased to be carrying the following beers, and hope you’ll like them as well:

Thornbridge Hall India Pale Ale (IPA) comes from an independent brewery in north central England, just east of Liverpool. To me, this is how IPA’s should taste, with a fine balance of malt and hop, a dry finish, and an excellent companion to good-tasting food. It has won numerous awards and continues the excellent reputation of Thornbridge. This beer is best with food, so try pairing it with Asian cuisine, especially curry dishes, lighter meats such as shellfish or fish, and cheeses such as Asagio, Colby, Blue Cheese, or Cheddar.

Ayinger Altbairisch Dunkel comes from the independently owned Ayinger Brewery in Bavaria, Germany. I now have a new-found respect for lagers, and Altbairisch is one reason for that. Malty with hints of coffee and chocolate, it is an incredibly refreshing beer that finishes clean and dry. It is lightly hopped and only 5% Alcohol by Volume. This beer has won numerous awards and is highly regarded by reviewers. It can be drunk alone, or pair it with German cuisine and meats that are grilled or smoked.

Chatoe Rogue OREgasmic comes from the independent Rogue Brewery of Newport, Oregon. As a Pale Ale styled beer, it’s relatively new but has already won two awards, one national and one international. As is true for all Rogue beers, the OREgasmic is made without any preservatives, additives, or chemicals, and it is not pasteurized. The OREgasmic is called this because it is made of 100% Oregon-sourced ingredients, from their own farm. As an all-around good pale ale; you might pair it with vegetable dishes, poultry, and cheeses such as Feta, Colby, or Edam. This is a pale ale to savor.

Two weeks ago I mentioned Samuel Smith’s Lager. It is by far one of the best tasting lagers I’ve ever had, with no trace of skunkiness. Please give all these beers a try and let me know what you think.

Enjoy.

-William, Beer and Wine Buyer.

With the weather being as nice as it has been, preparations for gardening are already underway for most people. It’s not too late though! Here at Ozark Natural Foods we are geared up and ready for all your gardening needs in our expanded Farm and Garden Department. This week I would like to touch on one of our great organic products, Organocide. This product can be found in a few different applications. First, we have one you can directly attach to your garden hose to for application. This is an easy way to apply to large areas. Second, we have a hand sprayer for smaller scale needs. We also have a quart concentrate that makes sixteen gallons. Here’s some information about Organocide I found on the web at www.arborgrow.com that I thought was valuable to anyone who wants to use this organic product.

Organocide is a nature-safe, organic spray oil effective on a wide variety of insects, mites, armored and soft scales and certain fungal diseases. It is insecticidal to the eggs, larvae and nymphs of insects and adults of soft bodied insects.

Target Pests:
Controls a wide range of mite and insect pests such as (but not limited to):

• Citrus rust mites
• Spider mites
• Armored and soft scales
• Mealy bugs
• White-flies
• Aphids
• Leaf-rollers
• Leaf miner
• Fungus gnats
• Thrips
• Sago Palm Scale
• Glassy Winged Sharpshooters

Organocide controls certain fungal diseases such as (but not limited to):

• Powdery mildew
• Black spot on roses
• Helminthesporiumand
• Greasy spot on citrus.

Plant Compatibility: Organocide has a high degree of safety to most plants.

• Vegetables
• Fruits
• Nuts
• Vine crops
• Herbs
• Spices
• Ornamentals
• Greenhouse crops
• Turfgrass
• Landscape plants
• Interior plants and plantscapes
• Bulbs
• Flowers and
• Field crops

However, some plants in the Euphorbia family (Crown of Thorns) have shown some sensitivity. If in doubt, treat a small section of plants before wide scale use.

I’m so excited about this growing season and hope that we can help with any garden needs you may have. So, come and see me at the new and improved Farm and Garden Department at Ozark Natural Foods.

Hey everyone! I hope you’re ready for a really exciting week at the Co-op – this week we are holding our 2012 Annual Owners’ Meeting!

What’s that? It’s an event that we hold each year for our owners to get up to date on what happened at the Co-op in the previous year, what our plans are for the upcoming year, and who our Board of Directors candidates are for the upcoming year. This is a very informative event and each attendee will receive a 2011 Annual Report that outlines our accomplishments, both financially and otherwise, in 2011.

This year, we have some fun things planned! This Sunday, February 26^th, we’ll be hosting the meeting!  Registration starts at 1:00 pm at the Fayetteville Town Center, so get there on time so you can view a slideshow of 2011, our My Co-op Rocks video (that won 3^rd place in the contest!), and our “I’m an Owner” commercials, featuring seven of our owners! At 1:30, we’ll show the 2011 farm documentary, entitled “Ozark Grown”, which features six of our local farmers. At 2:00, we have a question and answer session planned for you to ask our current Board of Directors any questions you have! After that, the business meeting will officially begin.

We’ll hear a report from our General Manager, Alysen, our Finance Manager, Gary, and our Board President, Tuesday. When they’re finished reporting, we’ll introduce our four candidates for the 2012 Board of Directors. Lorraine King-Markum, Beth Barham, Joshua Youngblood, and David Orr are running this year, and you can read their bios here. After their introductions, you’ll be able to ask them questions as well.

Each owner that attends the Annual Owners’ Meeting will receive a ballot when they register. After you hear from the candidates (and be sure to listen to each of their introductions), you can make your decision on the two you’d like to vote for in the 2012 election by filling out your ballot and placing it in the ballot box. You can also vote online beginning February 27^th, or in the store. Voting will go through March 27^th.

Last, but certainly not least, there will be some delicious food served! We’ll have everything from smoked turkey and pepperoni with cheese, to Greek trays and falafel trays, to veggies and black bean and corn salad! We’ll also have cookies and brownies. The food, all made fresh in our Deli, will be a delicious addition to this Annual Owners’ Meeting.

We’re excited about our accomplishments from 2011 and are looking forward to an even greater 2012, and hope you are too! Please come to the meeting and share in our excitement with us. If you can’t attend, please fill out a Proxy appointment, located in your January/February Nutshell, or your special addition Nutshell, or pick one up at the Owner Services Desk. These proxies will be used to help us attain quorum, but are NOT giving your vote to someone else. If you can’t attend and hand in a proxy, you’ll still be able to vote for the Board online or in the store until March 27^th.

We hope to see you at the 2012 Annual Owners’ Meeting, this Sunday, February 26^th, at 1:00pm at the Fayetteville Town Center. Come support your Co-op!

I feel as if I need to explain why I would be running for the Board. After all, most of you don’t know me, and I only moved to Fayetteville last year. So let me begin by saying why I want to serve the Co-op. I believe that people working together in service of a shared vision can change the world. I believe in the power of community, and I believe in making everyday choices as a citizen and as a consumer that count, that help create the change we wish to see (to crudely paraphrase Ghandi). That is why I am an owner, and that is why I want to help guide the Co-op toward achieving our shared vision of “a world strengthened by cooperative economics and driven by concern for the health and well-being of the planet and its inhabitants.”

My wife, Teresa, my boys, Woody and Fox, and I already feel like Fayetteville is home. We moved here when I accepted a new job in the Special Collections Department of the University of Arkansas Libraries. But it is the values we share with people here, which the Co-op exemplifies—devotion to community, commitment to more sustainable lifestyle choices, belief in the importance of natural and locally-produced food—that assures us that the move was the right choice for our family.

Although I am a new member of ONF, I have a great deal of experience with food Co-ops. Since first joining Life Grocery in Marietta, Georgia in 2002, I have taken advantage of co-ops for the majority of my food purchases and embraced the community co-ops provide everywhere I’ve lived. For four years before moving to Fayetteville, I served on the Board of Directors for the New Leaf Market Co-op in Tallahassee, Florida, including serving as President of the Board, 2010-2011. While on that Board I helped increase the Co-op’s promotion of local providers, led a committee to rewrite the Co-op’s Ends Policies, and helped guide the Co-op through a significant expansion.

I have participated in national co-op training through the Co-op Board Leadership Development (CBLD) organization and represented a co-op at two National Cooperative Grocer Association conferences. During my time as a Director and a Board leader, I had the opportunity to work closely with national cooperative consultants on many aspects of co-op governance, from small projects such as how to organize meetings to much larger undertakings such as rewriting foundational policies and actively engaging co-op ownership in long-range planning. In addition to co-op service, I have worked for state government and private industry as a technical writer, public relations specialist, administrator, and web content developer.

Ozark Natural Foods has strong ownership support and it does great work engaging the community outside the walls of the store. But I want everyone in this increasingly diverse region to identify with the store and the community it represents as strongly as I do. I would like the Co-op to expand its ownership with a plan for future growth directed toward meeting the needs and fulfilling the ideals of all the people in our area. The Co-op is not one-size fits all on purpose. But by foregrounding the important ideals the Co-op fosters (shared by many more people than are active owners) and making sure that everyone interested in natural foods and health supplies feels that they belong here, Ozark Natural Foods can serve the needs of Fayetteville and all of Northwest Arkansas even better than it does now. 

Thank you for considering me as a member of the Board of Directors of Ozark Natural Foods. I look forward to getting to know all of you better and working together to keep the Co-op strong.

-Joshua Youngblood, 2012 Board Candidate

Joshua Youngblood and his eldest son, Woody, are ‘taking the leap’ with their family’s move to Arkansas in this picture (below).

When I examine people’s diets, one of the most common weak areas is insufficient vegetable consumption. I understand the issues: sometimes it is the flavor of certain vegetables, the time it takes to prepare them, and I see very few people who crave vegetables like they might other foods. But I also understand the advantages of increasing vegetable intake to the recommended three cups per day. Vegetables and fruits are not only high in vitamins and minerals; they are also rich in diverse antioxidants that is vital to our longevity. Numerous studies have shown the benefits of diets high in antioxidants from foods in helping prevent cardiovascular disease. When they study a single antioxidant like vitamin C, they don’t find the same preventative benefit as with the complete package offered in produce. The natural matrix and co-factors found in fruits and veggies enhances the absorption of vitamins so that getting a few milligrams of a vitamin from vegetable might be the equivalent of hundreds in a supplement.

To help you get more of these benefits, here are some of my favorite tips for increasing vegetable intake:

Keep it colorful. Every different color represents a different antioxidant.

• Use prewashed salad mixes to add quick side to any meal.
• If you make smoothies, add greens to them. Try baby greens or sprouts or anything else tender that your blender can grind up.
• Throw sprouts or grated vegetables on sandwiches, wraps and salads. Broccoli sprouts highly concentrate the cancer preventing compounds of broccoli.
• Keep frozen veggies around for when you don’t have time to chop some up yourself. Freezing doesn’t destroy too many of the nutrients.
• Add flavor to nearly any vegetable by sauteing it with olive oil and garlic. Add a splash of vinegar at the end, I like balsamic.
• Use veggie sticks from carrots, celery, cucumber and/or bell pepper to dip in hummus or other healthy dips.
• Consider green food powders. Ozark Natural Foods is now carrying a delicious chocolate flavored one from Barleans.

Incorporating more vegetables in your diet can be challenging, but with these tips, I hope you find the transition easier. Have a great weekend!

Hello, this is Barry from Ozark Natural Foods Farm and Garden Department and I am back! My wife and I recently had a new baby girl and I have been helping her recover. Some time has past and it is really close for this year’s spring garden. As I mentioned before, we are planning the biggest Farm and Garden year ever with lots of new products and plenty of ones we have carried in the past. We just received a shipment of new products for the spring gardener in you. We will have soil, pots, bamboo trellising, seeds, fertilizer, heating pads, books, and much more. Come check out the new look of our Farm and Garden Department.

Also, it is time to get your spring garden ready. This means preparing the soil and selecting your seeds of choice for your upcoming garden. Here is a great list I found on listplanit.com that I would consider when thinking of your spring garden:

With the rising costs of food and a trend toward eating more natural foods, it is no wonder that the number of home gardens have surged in the past couple of years. A garden may take more work than just stopping by the local grocery store, but the benefits of having your own garden at home include; saving money, enjoying the outdoors, and knowing that you are helping sustain yourself and your family. That last concept can be pretty empowering when you realize you are capable. Here is a list of steps to get started.

• Create a list of the types of plants (flower/food) you would like to grow in your garden.
• Stop by our Farm and Garden Department for some quality seeds. Look for heritage seeds, which means you can harvest seeds to plant in next year’s garden from the flowers/food that you harvest in this year’s garden.
• Choose a location if you haven’t already started a garden. Look for a flat, sunny spot.
• Clear the ground in your chosen spot and add a layer of compost to tilled soil. This will add nutrients and prepare the soil for hosting new life.
• Plant your seeds. Follow the instructions on the packets for each particular flower/food.
• Water seeds daily.
• Work to keep weeds from crowding out seeds by putting a layer of mulch around seeds and pulling weeds as necessary.
• Enjoy the process of being connected to what you grow.  If you are growing fruits or vegetables, be sure to involve the whole family in the process. Children should learn that food comes from the ground, not from a shelf.

Now that I am back, come see me and all the great products in our Farm and Garden Department here at Ozark Natural Foods! Have a great day!

We had the pleasure of visiting some of the local wineries over the past several weeks. The first one we visited was Keels Creek Winery located in Eureka Springs.

While Keels Creek Winery is a relative newcomer to Arkansas’ winemaking community, they are focusing on remaining small producers with high quality, and include in their lines Vivant, Franc’N Zin, and La Row Red. Besides growing their own grapes, they also buy from local growers, including grape growers in Lowell, Hindsville, and extreme southern Missouri. These folks are making very good wines.

The Vivant is made from grapes harvested from Bishops Vineyard in Lowell, AR. The Vivant grape is a Canadian Hybrid that compares to a dry Reisling and Chardonnay. It has taste notes of apricot, melon, and anise. It pairs well with quiche, fish, and vegetable dishes. It also pairs well with Pecorino, Fontina, or Goat cheeses.

The Franc’N Zin is a Cabernet Franc and Red Zinfandel blend fermented on French Oak but is a light red wine with low tannins. It has taste notes of vanilla and clove with a cherry and grapefruit finish. It pairs well with baked salmon, mahi mahi, curry dishes and other Asian cuisine. It also pairs well with Raclette, Gruyere, or Morbier cheese.

The La Row Red is a hybrid from Eastern Europe developed to be grown organically, and is now under research through the University of Arkansas at the Hindsville Farm. It is aged in American Oak for two years and pairs well with beef, lamb, deer, or other red meats. It also pairs well with Aged Gouda, Manchego, or Rosy Goat cheese.

As with all local wines, when we purchase Keels Creek wines, we are not only supporting the local winery business, we are also supporting the local farmers they buy from. And remember, our local wines taste best when paired with local food, so prepare locally grown produce and locally raised meats for your meals with Keels Creek wines.

William, Beer and Wine Buyer

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! This is Nicki checking in with you today, filling in for Pauline this week. This will be my first blog, so I hope you enjoy!

As most of you know, we have many local products featured throughout our store year round. In Produce, we currently have many local sprouts and salad greens delivered fresh every week from several different farmers. For today’s blog, I would like to draw specific attention to two of our newer and less familiar salad additions.

-Crumplecress from Brannon Mountain Farm

and

 - Mache from both Brannon Mountain Farm and Foundation Farm

Crumplecress is a sweet and spicy cress that is great for both sandwiches and salads. You can also use it as a fresh, new garnish in place of flat parsley or cilantro. It has its own distinct and bold flavor, different from other herbs, sprouts or greens you may be used to, but it is one of my personal favorites! It is also a great item to try if you’re looking to add something new to your palate. We sell it in packages for $1.99ea, which can be found next to the sprouts in the salad display case. Brannon Mountain brings a fresh shipment every week, which we package right here in the store.

Mache is one of the newest greens that I’ve seen come through our local supply. I was curious to know what it tasted like and could be used for when it first came in a few weeks ago. Here is what I discovered: mache is a light, sweet tasting green, very similar to butter lettuce. It is a smaller plant, therefore the leaves are more of a baby lettuce than the bigger leaf lettuces you’re used to seeing, but they can be used for many of the same purposes. You can add them to a salad with other greens or even have it as the base green, adding your favorite veggies and sprouts for diversity. We sell the mache in both bulk (from Brannon Mountain at 7.99lb) and packaged form (from Foundation Farm at 2.49ea).

Thank you for listening to my ear full, I hope that it was helpful in drawing your attention to some great new local products as well as maybe giving you some new ideas for fresh salads and tangy dishes. Have a great week!

-Nicki, Produce

Valentine’s Day is a lovely holiday if you have someone special to share it with. At Ozark Natural Foods, we offer a nice selection of chocolates, cupcakes, body care items, cards and flowers for that someone special.

But for those that will be celebrating this holiday as a single, I say, it’s time to TREAT YOURSELF! Seriously, you deserve it! In Wellness we have all kinds of things to help you de-stress. From bath salts, to candles, to lotion that smells amazing, this is the perfect time to celebrate the wonderful person you are. February 14^th is also another excuse to eat lots of chocolate! Our Deli makes their own chocolates with hazelnut or almonds. They even come in a cute little box! Our Grocery also offers many different flavors of chocolate bars to choose from. Come by the store today or tomorrow to see what we offer. Whether you are buying for yourself or someone else, we have everything you need (including wine) to make tomorrow special!

I love shopping at the Co-op and the sense of being involved in the business of ONF as an owner. I’m interesting in joining the board to help secure its future, and to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes at the Co-op in terms of food retailing. I have an academic background (Ph.D., Cornell University) in rural sociology, and all of my research has been related to food and agriculture. I know a great deal about the farm situation in the U.S. and globally, and especially about the difficulties faced by smaller family farms. I’d like to learn more about what happens at the retail end of things that can help carry the concept of sustainable agriculture all the way to the consumer/owner.

For example, I’m very supportive of ONF’s efforts to feature products from local farms in the store. It responds to the growing demand by consumers to know more about where their food comes from and how it is produced. At the same time it strengthens the local economy and helps protect our environment. 

Cooperatives have a long and impressive record of making these kinds of positive change in their communities. In terms of my future vision for the Co-op, I would like to see ONF as the undisputed leading actor in positive cooperative efforts in NW Arkansas in 2020. 

I think the Co-op will need to pay close attention to the expected population growth in the NW Arkansas area in coming years to secure a strong future. We should expect competing stores such as Whole Foods to eventually come to the region and perhaps give ONF a strong run for its money with our customer base. To counter that, I would like to see ONF taking a close look at the region’s current and projected demographic makeup to analyze where they bring the most value-added to the customer. We need to keep a close eye on who is shopping at ONF so that we know what they come for and what they need, and we make sure we provide that. As a sociologist, I think I can help with this aspect as I’m well trained in survey development and analysis.

ONF’s current focus of paying off the building is a good move in my view. It will lower ONF’s overhead and so make it more able to lower prices in the future without compromising the sustainability of the Co-op as a business. I believe the key to overcoming future outside competition will be to build the strongest ties possible starting right now between our owners/customers and the local food system of farmers and other food providers. 

We need to be able to offer our consumers the products they want in a context of personal attention and social connection that new competitors will find hard to match. We should be able to carry everything the average person needs in terms of the basis of a healthy diet, and do that in a cost effective way. If we work with the people who shop at ONF to make sure we are responding to their needs, and do that in a way that also gives them a sense that they are maintaining a strong connection to their wider community and their environment, then we should have a solid basis of support from our owners and other shoppers into the future.