General Manager’s Update – Jan 2022

January 14, 2022

The New Year came in with a bang!  Or more like a silent white-out.  The Fredericksburg Food Co-op spent our first week of the year like many of you, looking for our flashlights and digging cars out of snow. Unfortunately, we lost power intermittently for the better part of two days at the Co-op and lost most of the perishable food in our coolers and freezers.  I’m happy to say we gave away tons of food for free and did everything we could to help as many people as possible and to put as few things as possible into the landfill.  I’m really proud of that effort and our staff deserves a huge round of applause.  They worked their tails off, kept the store open when we had power and did an amazing job of finding the positive in every situation.  

I came out of the storm remembering what a unifying effect these kinds of events have on our community.  As a relative newcomer to the area, I had more conversations with strangers and met more of my neighbors after the storm than I have in almost two years. Throughout last week, we met so many of our neighbors without power who came to the Co-op each morning just to warm up, get breakfast, and charge their devices.  Many folks came into the Co-op and zoomed into work meetings, charged kids’ iPods, and brought back supplies to the family.  As a new store, seeing folks use the Co-op for these basic but really important things felt so great.  That’s the kind of resource our founders envisioned that the Co-op could be for Fredericksburg and it was heart-warming to watch it come to fruition, albeit in the wake of a pretty historic storm. 

The store is still getting restocked and we’re making great progress despite holiday shortages, storm-related delays and the general supply chain issues facing so many retailers.  Thank you to our awesome owners and customers for bearing with us while we navigate all these factors to get our coolers and freezers stocked back up with your favorites.  There will be lots of new items in the store, so let us know if we forget one of your favorites, but also, don’t be scared to try something new.  

We look forward to 2022 with big dreams for the Co-op and a lot more of those community-filled moments that made last week so memorable.  This store and community are very special places and personally, I feel very lucky to be here.  I can’t wait to see all that this Cooperative can do and what this year will entail for us all.  

Thank you FXBG and I’ll see you in the aisles! 

Cooperatively Yours,

Chris Roland
General Manager
Fredericksburg Food Co-op