Green Spotlight:  Notes From Nancy Grant

The usual advice for wise energy use includes saving gas by planning your driving route carefully to avoid backtracking.  But what if you’d like to leave your car or truck out of your errand-running loop altogether? Here are three good ideas:

Shank’s mare – This old-fashioned country term means using your own two legs for travel. Whether you’re starting from home or your workplace, just put on comfy shoes and it’s right foot, left foot all the way to the co-op. If you’re new to walking outdoors, you’ll find it’s quite different from a treadmill–traffic and signals to watch for, people to chat with, birds to watch–but you can estimate that each half mile will take ten to fifteen minutes. The return trip may take a bit longer because you’ll have the added weight of whatever you bought. A child’s wagon or other wheeled contraption to pull along can be a big help.

Bicycle – Whether your human powered two-wheeler has one gear or twenty, when you arrive at the co-op you’ll find a sturdy bike rack near the front door where you can park it safely. Before you leave, take a minute to balance your load of shopping bags in your front handlebar basket or pannier baskets over the rear wheel; small bungee cords or carabineer clips will help keep your packages in place as you pedal.

Bus –The co-op is on MVTA’s bus route #442. Help planning your public transportation travel route is just a click away at or www.mvta.com.

Bonus tip: In the store, look for the display of reusable thermal bags to carry your purchases home. Available in two sizes and costing less than a single gallon of gas, they’ll keep your hot items toasty or your frozen items icy cold.

Energy journalist and blogger Nancy S. Grant is a member of the Cooperative Communicators Association.

Click here to read the Valley Natural Foods Green Report 2010.

Green Spotlight:  Notes from Nancy Grant

Trying to figure out the exact energy-saving benefits of switching to something new can be tough if you try to go it alone. Are you using the right thing for your situation? How much money can you save over a year’s time? How can you figure the impact on the environment?

When Valley Natural Foods general manager Susan McGaughey needs answers to energy questions like these she calls on the helpful folks at Dakota Energy Cooperative. 

Operating a grocery store presents unique energy problems. For safety, the foods and drinks in freezers and refrigerated cases must be kept at certain temperatures. Lighting within these display cases must be bright enough so shoppers can read product labels easily.

Working with Dakota Energy’s Tim Dougherty, Susan examined a new idea. Would replacing the good fluorescent lights inside the cases with new, even more efficient LED lights have measurable benefits? Turns out, the answer is “yes.” New lights will provide excellent illumination but use fewer kilowatts than the old ones. The lower operating temperatures of the new lights will also reduce the heat load inside the cases. That means even more energy savings.

With number-crunching help from the experts at the electric co-op, Susan figures that each year the new LED lights will save the food co-op more than one thousand dollars in electricity expenses – and reduce carbon dioxide emissions at power plants in the region by more than seventy thousand pounds.

Learning from the experts in the world of cooperatives is a big step on the road to a more sustainable world.

Energy journalist and blogger Nancy S. Grant is a member of the Cooperative Communicators Association.

Click here to read the Valley Natural Foods Green Report 2010.

This past year, Valley Natural Foods partnered with Dakota County Technical College and the Salvation Army to encourage shoppers to use reusable bags. Through the donation of our Green Stamp Program, DCTC purchased reusable bags for the Salvation Army food shelf in Dakota County. They report that 80% of food shelf recipients are now using those bags.

Have you considered bagging your groceries into a reusable bag? We are interested to better understand your shopping habits in this area. Please take the following Online Survey to help us complete this project.