La Montañita Co-op Market

A member-owned source for organic food, health, and beauty care products. The bulk aisle is expansive, the meat top-notch, and the best produce in the city. This month, prime-quality organic thanksgiving turkeys! They may have the appearance of pricey, but (see below), actually one of the cheaper organics resources in the country.

We know a few folks at Nob Hill can get bitchy, but that’s mostly to do with how busy it gets over there; don’t let 1% of the staff sour your experience. That said, we are partial to the sweethearts at Rio Grande.

Let’s level: our ancestors ate “organic” food, and bathed (when they could) with “natural” health items, and it’s outrageous that we should have to spend through the roof to do the same. (In fact, we all subsidize so-called “normal” produce through taxes. So you may as well get your money’s worth.)

But that’s far from the Co-op’s doing, and as a non-profit, they spend considerable resources trying to help us save money. From the weekly member sales to their membership in National Co-op Grocers Association sales to volunteer-for-a-discount programs to countless other coupons and sales around the stores, there’s plenty of ways to make good eats affordable. And to those who remain unconvinced: go on and compare prices between organic produce at Smith’s and the like with La Montañita; then compare the cost of membership with other co-op markets around the country. In fact, we got it made.

And that’s to say nothing of the Co-op’s extensive and deep-reaching community involvement, nor their Food Shed project – nor their Cooperative Distribution Center, set up to help small-scale farmers get a foot in the industry door. They’re even starting a fund (called the FUND) to be available to small food producers looking to grow or improve their efficiency. And tons more. Seriously.