September Letters to the Editor
Advertising meat discounts
Dear PCC,
As a regular PCC shopper for over 20 years and someone who has spent a long career fighting climate change, I was once again dismayed to be greeted by a “meat on sale” placard as entered a store.
Animal agriculture accounts for 12-20% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Encouraging a shift away from meat and dairy consumption is likely the single highest climate impact action that PCC can take. Instead, however, PCC continues to promote its consumption through sale pricing and other means, with the effect of imperiling our ability to achieve a safe climate.
I appreciate the co-op’s commitment to providing a full range of food products to attract as a wide range of consumers possible and to supporting local ranchers using more sustainable practices — which unfortunately have very little overall climate advantage relative to standard supermarket meat, despite occasional claims otherwise.
I think PCC can do better and put an end to promotion of high-climate-impact products with red meat, dairy, and farmed shrimp being at the top of the list and to more actively promote more climate-friendly food choices.
Sincerely,
Michael Lazarus
Seattle
PCC replies: Thank you for writing and for your thoughtful comments on whether PCC should promote products that contribute to higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions. PCC members debated decades ago whether the co-op should sell meat at all (it originally did so through The Meat Shop, a separate cooperative), just as they discussed whether the co-op should sell sugar or alcoholic beverages.
Since the co-op does sell meat and dairy products, we treat their prices the way we would for any other item, trying to ease the effects of inflation and pass along good values where we can. For a lot of shoppers and members, meat and seafood are the main focus of many meals, and a big reason why they go grocery shopping. (PCC does not sell farmed shrimp, one of the other high-climate-impact foods you mentioned. Co-op product standards allow only wild-caught shrimp.)
Your letter is especially timely because PCC is in the process of developing the co-op’s next set of sustainability goals. Watch for a member email with a survey to help us understand where members want PCC to focus that work. Climate change was a significant part of the co-op’s last set of five-year goals, which culminated in reducing the energy use per square foot in PCC stores by 20% and achieving carbon negative store operations. (The full report is online here.) Current climate change efforts include PCC contributions to the Tilth Alliance organic agriculture grants, funding projects known to decrease carbon emissions, and we regularly promote ways to make a vegetarian or vegan diet more accessible to members and shoppers.
We appreciate and welcome your input, and have shared it with staff members who oversee pricing and promotions as well as meat and seafood.
Produce stickers
Is there anything else you can do besides putting stickers on bell peppers and cucumbers? They do not come off of these fruits.
PCC replies: The produce stickers are placed on products by the growers and vendors of the items for identification purposes. As such, they arrive to us that way!
We have passed along your message to our Produce Merchandisers, so they in turn can raise the issue with our vendor partners. We do know that composting facilities greatly appreciate every effort to remove stickers from produce before fruits and vegetables are composted, as the stickers are notoriously difficult to eliminate from compost piles.
Eighth Generation partnership
PCC’s website lists Eighth Generation as one of your retail partners. When I try to find out the terms of the partnership, I see that unlike other vendor’s terms, there is no additional information. So how do I get the 10% off that you say PCC members can get on online orders?
Cream cheese ingredients
I just found some new-to-me cream cheeses at the Ballard store from Eltana. At first, I was excited, because I saw that they were local. But after reading the very-long list of ingredients, I saw that the plain flavor of Eltana cream cheese contains natamycin, an ingredient your own Ingredients for Food List classifies as, “”Not acceptable, except for use on the outside of inedible cheese rinds.”” Since cream cheese is a cultured dairy product that does not contain any cheese that would have an inedible cheese rind, how is this ingredient showing up on your shelves?
The base question this experience prompted is this: Is PCC stepping away from its ingredients standards and becoming like all other stores that don’t care what’s in the food they sell, or did you folks just miss this one? I don’t like having to look up the ingredients when I shop, and I was surprised to find one that shouldn’t pass muster to be in a PCC.
PCC replies: Thank you for calling this to our attention. We have checked with Eltana and they informed us that no cream cheese they provide to PCC should have natamycin in it, as they are aware we don’t allow it except on inedible rinds. They did note that other retailers receive plain whipped cream cheese that contains the ingredient. To be safe, when we received your letter we requested all our store teams, including Ballard, check the products on the shelf to ensure we did not receive any containing that ingredient by mistake. We were informed that one or two units had been found a few weeks earlier and staff had pulled those items as soon as they were found. We will continue to screen those items. If we find any packages that have natamycin on the label, they will be removed from the shelf.
Again, thank you for bringing this to our attention and providing us the opportunity to remedy this situation. Please don’t hesitate to reach out in the future if you have any additional comments, questions or concerns.