Response from Seward Coop on Eden Foods
No, they won't stop selling their products.
Eden Farms - please don't support them because they are suing to be exempt from covering women's birth control under ASA. Please don't stock their products.
Our response:
Thank you for voicing your concern about this issue. We've been monitoring this situation for over a year and share your concerns about Eden Foods' position on health care. We communicated those concerns to the company's president, Michael Potter, when Eden Foods filed a complaint against the U.S. government (Eden Foods v. Sebelius) in 2013.
Seward Community Co-op unconditionally supports women's access to health care, including contraception. However, several other aspects of Eden Foods' practices align very well with Seward Co-op values. Many of our customers appreciate the fact that Eden Foods is an independent company rather than one owned by a large corporation. Eden Foods consistently supports strict organic standards, and their products were free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and packaging free of Bisphenol A (BPA) long before most other producers began to consider these issues. As often as possible, Eden Foods also sources crops locally to their business, keeping hundreds of small-scale, organic family farms in business.
Every producer has his or her own vision and values, and while we strive to source products from companies with values similar to our own, we cannot expect to achieve 100-percent alignment with each brand we carry at the co-op. In this case, our co-op serves a diverse customer base who have differing opinions on this issue. In order to meet the wide variety of product needs within our community, we sell items that some of our customers may prefer not to see on our shelves. At this time, we believe that retaining Eden Foods products best serves our Ends Statement and our owners' needs. We provide alternatives to Eden Foods products whenever possible. We respect your purchasing decisions in this regard, and we strongly encourage you to vote with your dollars by making product choices that align with your values.
Thank you,
Allison, Advocacy and Governance Specialist
I will not be buying any Eden Foods products unless they drop their lawsuit to be exempted from covering women's reproductive health.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I used to volunteer at the nascent North Country Co-op back at the beginning. I lived on the West Bank then, at 2010 S. 6th Street. (I wonder if that big old duplex is still there...)
I actually had a job at The Peoples Mill, grinding various grains to make the bulk organic flour and corn meal that was sold at the Co-ops. It was so cool! I had to lug 50# sacks of grain up a step ladder and dump them in the hopper of the grinder. Then I'd grab the sacks of flour at the other end, sew them shut with a cool little hand-held machine thingy, and haul them out to the loading dock for the truck to pick up. All for 50 cents an hour ("peoples" wages 
).
When a sack of rye berries came in, I always picked through it to get the little chunks of ergot. I had a vague idea of getting them to someone who could process them into LSD - but I have to admit I never managed to follow through.
I ended up moving Up North later that year (back to the land, and all that), so I don't know how long the Peoples Mill kept going. By the time I ended up back in Mpls. in 1975, it was gone. By 1976 I was working at the glorious workers collective, the New Riverside Cafe, at the corner of Cedar and Riverside. I think by then we paid ourselves 75 cents an hour. I loved working there, though. Our weekly workers planning meetings were a hoot - oh, the endless discussions of principles and minutae! One of the major recurring issues was the longstanding practice of voluntary pricing - customers paid whatever they wanted for the food they bought. Nothing brought out the howling amongst the collective like suggesting that we actually start charging fixed prices for the food! It was long time coming, but eventually we posted prices - still, if someone didn't want to pay that amount, we continued letting them pay what they wanted, or even just gave them the food for free.
Oh well, I could go on and on with my stories from that time... rent strikes, protests against the building of those gawd-awful highrises, hanging out at the 400 Bar, Willie and the Bees...
Those were the days, my friend. *sigh*
I was in my mid-20s during my Riverside Cafe days, married, with a kid. I was a college drop-out - attended Macalaster College from '67 to '70, dropped out in the second half of my junior year (long story). I remember knowing about that incident, but I wasn't there.
My favorite dish was our black bean enchiladas. I used to make the sauce. We instituted a "Mexican Night" while I was working there - Tuesdays, I think. I did most of the cooking for that, my fellow workers nicknamed me "Delores Del Rio" because I was so into doing the Mexican dishes.
I thought we did great food, too. Of course, I was one of the main cooks...
Wow .. well there you go, I probably saw you and you me many times.. because I was always in and out of there..
I never will forget like 2 days after that incident, being in Dinkytown.. and I was walking by the little Japanese Restaurant.. right across from the drugstore, and looked down the alley and there were all the national guard that had got called in.
Scared me to death, and I looked at those young guys, and they were as scared as I was.
It was one of those epiphany moments where you find yourself in the other persons mindset..
this is what happens as you get older 
DUh..Yes it was the Minneapolis police.. I was registered in the school of agriculture at the time which was on the St Paul campus..Having one of my many senior moments 
(how did this happen to us?)
I think I wanted to be sure I wasn't having one about which police department was involved.
It's the right street and the right block, but there's nothing there that used to be there 40 some years ago. 
