Fall Update from Krish

Dear Co-op Member-Owner,

As families settle back into the school year after what I hope was a wonderful summer, your neighborhood co-op is stocked and ready with lunchbox essentials, game-day favorites and everyday staples — always prioritizing local, seasonal and organic choices for your school lunch bags, tailgate parties or cozy meals with friends and family.

It was a busy summer for PCC. In July, we returned to Downtown Seattle with our 16th store, PCC Corner Market. Corner Market is a new kind of PCC experience — a small-format store with a selection of top-shopped favorites, freshly prepared and ready-to-eat deli items, and other weekday pick-me-ups — all sourced to our co-op’s uncompromising standards. It spans about a third of the space originally occupied by PCC’s downtown store (which opened in early 2022 and closed at the end 2023).

Corner Market has already demonstrably fulfilled an unmet need in Seattle’s city center by setting a new standard for what a high-quality, delicious breakfast or lunch should cost for downtown workers and residents. To the community’s enthusiastic response to Corner Market’s opening, we feel immense gratitude (thank you!), and we are also proud to play a role in Downtown Seattle’s renewed energy.

Towards the end of the summer, we relocated our office teams right next door to Corner Market, using up the remaining space in a manner that closely aligns with our values as a co-op and provides these teams the unique benefit of being able to work alongside one of our stores.

In more good news: thanks to your generosity, we’ve raised $550,000 for Growing for Good as of August. These contributions directly support our food access work, connecting local farms with local hunger relief organizations including food banks. This is community in action: building a more resilient, equitable and local food system together.

We have also been making changes in parts of our stores, as many of you may have already noticed: a transition to self-service deli cases. This change is happening in phases. Some stores have already made the switch, others are in progress, and the rest will follow in the coming months. We know this is a meaningful change, and for some, not an easy one. The transition to self-service is guided by feedback from many of our staff, members and shoppers as well as practical considerations around food waste, packaging and efficiency. Rest assured, the same high-quality ingredients, recipes and customer service remain at the heart of Market Kitchen. As always, we welcome your input. Let us know what you think by visiting our website.

This year also marks the 25th anniversary of Washington Farmland Trust, which began as the PCC Farmland Fund in 2000. While now an independent nonprofit, it remains one of our closest partners in protecting the farmland that feeds our communities. Watch this video on our social media and visit the Trust’s website to learn more about the important work that they do.

At every step, our mission remains our north star. And you, our members, are central to making it all possible. Thank you for your ongoing support, passion, and commitment.

With gratitude,

Krish