What a great way to pay it forward! Nice job to Wild Oats Market & Williams College on this collaboration! ~Wild Oats Market introduces Suspended Groceries, a new approach to food assistance that focuses on making fresh foods, which are not frequently stocked by food banks, more readily available to everyone. Suspended Groceries is the brainchild of Kinetic, a student-run think tank at Williams College that encourages student groups to turn their passions into tangible results. While researching problems and solutions related to food security, the group who designed Suspended Groceries came upon a simple concept called Suspended Coffees, where people paid in advance for a coffee meant for someone else. The students applied this concept to groceries, and proceeded to pitch their idea to grocery stores located near the college. After meeting with the students, Wild Oats Market in Williamstown quickly “signed up,” and became the first grocery store in the area to offer Suspended Groceries. Currently, shoppers at Wild Oats can “suspend” any or all of the following six items for someone in need: · 1 carton of Feather Ridge Farm eggs · 1 32 oz container of Stonyfield organic yogurt · 1 bunch of fresh broccoli · 1 10 oz package of Cascadian Farm organic frozen berries · 1 lb. of organic rolled oats · 1 cup of house-made soup Wild Oats has made it very easy for shoppers to participate in Suspended Groceries. When checking out at any register, the shopper simply selects one or more items from the Suspended Groceries display at the register and adds a coupon for each item to their order. The shopper is charged for the suspended item(s). The suspended purchase is noted on the register slip and is documented by Wild Oats Market. On a regular basis, Wild Oats Market prints customer coupons for each item that has been suspended and delivers these coupons to organizations like Berkshire Food Project, which distribute the coupons to people who need them most. Picking up an item that has been suspended is just as easy. The coupon holder simply brings the coupon to Wild Oats, selects the food that matches the item on the coupon, and brings both coupon and food item to any cashier. He or she exchanges the coupon for the item – and the transaction is complete. “Suspended Groceries is a ‘first’ in the area, if not the country,” said Wild Oats General Manager David Durfee. “Wild Oats Market is delighted to be working with Kinetic to introduce it to the community. Both the Williams students who developed this idea, and Wild Oats Market, as the first grocery store in the area to implement it, hope to see Suspended Groceries expand and, like Suspended Coffees, become an integral part of our culture.”
Posted on: Tue, 20 May 2014 00:11:20 +0000
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