10% on the 10th

Durango Natural Foods Members!

Be sure to mark your calendars, because on Friday, April 10th, DNF with be offering a 10% (total) Member Discount at the register all day.

Come on down, fill your baskets and ring in the savings.

Spring Coupon Books Are Here

Spring is a great time to rejuvenate and re-energize as we prepare for a season of celebrations, including Cinco de Mayo, Mother's Day, Memorial Day and countless graduations. And there's no better way to celebrate than with good food.

That's why we're offering another great Co-op Advantage coupon book. Its full of big savings on many of your favorite brands.

This coupon book is just one small way for us to say "thanks" to you, our co-op members and shoppers!

Members should have received your coupon book in the mail last week, and coupon books are also now available at DNF.

Support Your Co-op! A Call to Members

Durango Natural Foods and other local independent businesses have been feeling the pinch while Santa Rita Drive (between Highway 160 and State Highway 3) is closed for construction. Though we know that detours can bite extra time out of your busy schedules, we really need your support during the next two weeks as construction continues. DNF has been an advocate for sustainability, wholesome local products and a strong local economy for 35 years. Many of our members, staff and community partners rely on our continued success in order to make ends meet here in Durango. With your help, especially during these trying times, DNF will continue to serve our community's needs and be the best natural foods store we can be!

Your co-op needs you! Come fill your baskets with food you can feel good about.

Food Safety Bills HR 875 and HR 759

There has been a lot of debate lately about recently introduced food safety bill HR 875. Many people are concerned that one-size-fits-all regulation only tends to work for industrialized operations and small farmers, gardeners and farmers markets may be negatively impacted. Here are some facts:

A few things that HR 875 DOES do:

• It addresses the most critical flaw in the structure of the FDA by splitting it into 2 new agencies -one devoted to food safety and the other devoted to drugs and medical devices.
• It increases inspection of food processing plants, basing the frequency of insoection on the risk of the product being produced -it does NOT make plants pay any registration fees or user fees
• It does extend food safety agency authority to food production on farms, requiring farms to write a food safety plan and consider the critical points on that farm where food safety problems are likely to occur.
• It requires imported food to meet the same standards as food produced in the U.S.

A few things that HR 875 does NOT do:

• It does not cover food produced by teh USDA (beef, pork, poultry, lamb, catfish)
• It does not establish a mandatory animal identification system.
• It does not regulate backyard gardens.
• It does not regulate seed.
• It does not call for new regulations on farmers markets or direct marketing arrangements.
• It does not apply to food that does not enter interstate commerce.
• It does not mandate any specific type of traceability for FDA-regulated foods.

HR 759 is more likely to move through Congress than HR 875, and HR 759 contains several provisions that could cause problems for small farms and food processors:

• It extends traceability recordkeeping requirements that currently apply only to food processors to farms and restaurants, and requires that the recordkeeping be done electronically.
• It calls for standard lot numbers to be used in food production.
• It requires food processing plants to pay a registration fee to FDA to fund inspection efforts.
• It instructs FDA to establish production standards for fruits and vegetables and to establish F+Good Agricultural Practices for produce.

It's important to let members of Congress know how food safety proposals will impact the practices that make diversified, organic and direct market producers different from agribusiness. But simply shooting down any attempt to fix our broken food system is not an approach that works for consumers.

DNF is now on Twitter!

Receive tweets -product updates, dinner ideas, daily deli specials, food safety updates and more- by following us at http://twitter.com/DurangoCoop! Just sign in if you're already a member of Twitter, sign up if you're not. It's easy!

Good News... For a Change

Good Dirt Radio™ is a local non-profit which reports inspiring stories about people helping to solve environmental challenges affecting life on Earth. They share positive environmental ideas and actions that individuals, businesses, institutions or communities can embrace.

Their current story, on Neighborhood Gardens, mirrors a lot of the same ideas DNF brought up in an article in our latest issue of the Garlic Press Newsletter.

Click on the links above to listen to the Good Dirt Radio story, and read the Gralic Press article!

2009 Reusable Bag Challenge

Join DNF and other Durango businesses as we participate in the 2009 Reusable Bag Challenge
Hosted by the Colorado Association of Ski Towns (CAST)

• Raise awareness of the environmental and social costs of single-use shopping bags
• Get a sweet 5 cent discount for every bag of your own you use, every time you shop
• Help reduce Durango's plastic waste stream
• The challenge runs from March through September
  
• The winning town receives a $5,000 solar panel installation

Durango Natural Foods was the first business in Durango to stop providing new plastic bags at our registers last year.

We have taken over 50,000 plastic bags out of circulation in under one year
And have reduced the amount of paper bags we purchase by 80%!

Member Appreciation Day

Durango Natural Foods Co-op will host a Member Appreciation Day on Saturday, March 14th.
All members will receive 5% off of purchases all day!

We hope you'll join us for sampling, community and savings! Board members will be in the store during the day for a meet and greet.

See you there!