From the General Manager's Desk

By Emile Armarotico

This spring, National Co-op Grocers recognized Ashland Food Co-op as a Co+efficient Sustainability Star for our excellent sustainability efforts.

Our Sustainability Vision aims at being carbon neutral by 2030. We’ve taken a great stride toward this by installing a 39 kilowatt solar electric system on our rooftop with the capacity to generate approximately 7% of our electricity usage. The cost was partially offset by a $27,000 REAP (Rural Energy for America Program) Grant.

We removed and donated an existing 4.6 kilowatt system to the Ashland Emergency Food Bank. This donation will offset a measure of their electrical consumption required for refrigeration.

This fall we’ll install an additional 12 kilowatt solar electric system on our south-facing warehouse to generate energy to run a pair of our large coolers. With this, we will have covered the majority of available space to capture solar energy. The Co-op hopes to invest in the dream of an off-campus solar electric system to capture even more of the sun’s energy!

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Meet the 1st Street Beet


Welcome to the newly redesigned and reimagined newsletter from the Ashland Food Co-op: 1st Street Beet.
Think of this publication as a resource to know what’s going on in every level of the community: at the co-op, around town, in the region, and on Earth!