Dixon Market Expansion: News and Updates!
The Dixon Co-op Board and Staff are currently planning for the first major expansion of the store in a number of years. Our goal is to increase our storage capacity for both shelf stable and fresh and frozen foods, allowing us to purchase in larger quantities and reduce the cost of goods sold. With the enlarged space and increased refrigeration we will be able to better keep local fresh produce and bulk items for sale to the community, as well as to better supply the Picuris Travel Center. We will also make improvements to the delivery area to improve safety and efficiency. In summer of 2022, the Dixon Co-op was awarded a USDA HFFI grant worth $200,000 for the work.
Board Members and Staff are currently discussing plans with local architects and builders about budgets and timelines. It may be that we need to raise more money to do the job, and we'll let members know as we make progress.
Stay tuned to this page for updates. Please contact board members if you have questions or suggestions for this work. Please contact us especially if you have ideas for more funding opportunities!
Thank you!
- Dixon Co-Op Board of Directors
(enjoy the historical photos of expansions past)
Have you been missing a good steak or roast lately? The fires this summer put a pinch on availability from our usual supplier of good local organic meat. I’m happy to announce that we’ll soon be getting a whole steer from Joe Romero at Vaquero Beef. You might have seen this cow feeding around the area, it’s a local. The challenge for us until we get our new storage facility is where we’re going to put all of that frozen beef, so if you are interested in a quarter steer let me know and we can work out a good price for you. It should be ready in about three weeks. I’m hoping to keep at least one quarter for the store so that leaves three to be sold. Each quarter will be around 125 lbs. and the pricing depends a bit on what the difference will be between the hanging weight and the finished processing weight, but will be around $6.50/lb. It comes cut and vacuum sealed into steaks, roasts, ribs, and ground beef. Let me know if you’re interested.
In other local issues, have the goat heads been putting a damper on your bike riding adventures? Well, we have a solution for that. Stan’s Tire Sealant is now available at the store. It puts Slime to shame. We have it by the quart or by the 2 oz. size for individual tires. It’s a liquid latex that you put in your tire or tube and it seals any small puncture so you can peddle to your heart’s delight. The people I know who use it swear by it. This year is a banner year for the devil’s weed but it doesn’t have to end your outdoor adventures.
One thing that has surprised me since working here is how many eggs people eat. We sell hundreds of cartons a month and most people want the local variety. It’s been tough keeping up this year again because of the effect of the fire since our two biggest suppliers of local eggs come over the hill from Mora. If you have chickens and more eggs than you can eat, we’ll buy any extras you have. Bring them by the store with a simple label containing your name and phone number and we can sell them to our hungry customers.
We will be open our regular hours all weekend, including Monday, for the Labor Day holiday. We open at 8 am and are here until 7pm every day of the week. Remember, the more you shop here, the better the local economy does. We appreciate your patronage and hope to see you soon here at the Coop.
Welcome to the Dixon Cooperative Market’s new Website! Great thanks to Jeff Spicer and Spicer Digital for his help in getting this going. We hope you find it helpful and informative as you navigate our local food distribution effort.
The Coop is a community based food store that opened in 2006 in 500 square feet we rented from the Embudo Valley Library. We’ve grown to become an integral part of the Embudo Valley economy, providing over a million dollars worth of food to our over four hundred household members and all of the greater community. We employ over twenty locals and now operate out of our 1100 square foot building bringing a large selection of local and organic produce, grocery goods, local consignment items, and a popular deli that offers a menu of delicious sandwiches and pizzas all made in house.
The Coop is directed by a five member Board of Directors who are members of the Coop and represent our general membership in decision making and financial oversight. The Board is elected at the end of January, two members in even numbered years and three in odd. If you have been a member in good standing at the Coop for a full month before the election, you are eligible to run for the board. We have been blessed with many dedicated and talented board members in our history, each one bringing their expertise and enthusiasm to the operation. We are currently seeking applicants for the January 2022 election, consider throwing your hat in if you are a current member. We encourage diversity on our board. We would love to have our board and staff as diverse as the community it serves, therefore we encourage all community members to apply for board positions as well as job opportunities when they arise.
In the next year we hope so see some new exciting possibilities come to fruition. We are looking at building an addition in order to create adequate cold storage and back stock space. Our growth has required this expansion, we can only sell what we have in stock and our sales have gotten to the point we can’t keep enough in stock without more space to store it. We are currently applying for funding from community development grant opportunities to see this plan happen. Hopefully, in a couple years our new warehouse facility will be part of the backdrop of the Library’s new park and Community Center development. Another potential development in the store is our budding relationship with the Pueblo of Picuris. As they open up their new facility, they have asked us to partner with them to bring fresh food to the Peñasco Valley. We will be ordering and delivering a selection of our distributors’ goods to the new Travel Center on Highway 75 in Picuris. The facility has been put on hold due to Covid, but we are excited to have the opportunity to supply them with good whole food in the coming year.
I would like to extend a huge thank you to all of our shoppers for responding so positively to the changes that have occurred at the store in the last several months. The challenges that we have faced in the last couple years have created new ways that we work, shop and communicate, and I hope the Coop’s adaptations have helped the people in our little town better survive during the pandemic and the economic turmoil it has created. We have struggled to maintain a workforce that keeps our deli open seven days a week. At this point we are able to stay open, so keep trying to place your orders. As we keep adding the needed staff we will be better equipped to bring you the food you love. This year we have been concentrating on bringing good produce to shoppers. The selection of local produce this season was quite incredible, at one time more than 40 items in our produce section were grown within 25 miles of the store. Our local selection would compete with any store of any size in the area. Even out of season, we have been able to get a good selection of organic produce from a new supplier to us, Veritable Vegetable. The response from you has been exactly what we hoped. Keep shopping with us and we’ll keep bringing the food you need and want.
The above photo was taken by Linda Griffith in November of 2005... the store would've been open for a few months at this point. Sitting with our store's current manager and instigator are the Aby girls. One of whom now works at the store!
