Greetings and thanks for writing. As usual, suggestions and responses may have been edited for brevity, clarity and/or comedy. In addition, no idea, concept, issue, remark, phrase, description of event, word or word string should be taken seriously. This also applies to the previous sentence.

In food news this month is the Bayer-Monsanto merger agreement — what is commonly referred to as a “mega-merger,” where one giant multinational company merges or takes over another giant multinational company, for the mutual benefit of their stockholders. Bayer is a German company that started out making aspirin around 1899 and has since grown into a giant pharmaceutical and chemical company with over 110,000 employees. Bayer makes many agricultural chemicals, including some pretty toxic ones like neonicotinoids, suspected of being behind honeybee colony collapse disorder and having negative health effects on humans. Monsanto is a U.S. company most publicly known for the GMO seeds it created to work with its herbicide Roundup (glyphosate). It appears the idea is that with a combined GMO seed and chemical company, farmers will buy more seed-pesticide-herbicide systems and from a single source. 

The Bayer-Monsanto deal would be the largest corporate cash buyout in history. It would also create the world’s largest agribusiness. Some people are concerned that as the industry consolidates, farmers and consumers will have less choice and ultimately food prices could increase, plus large corporations could have more influence on governments worldwide. Personally, I believe bigger is better, so I’m hoping once the deal is done, the resulting company can merge with the other current mega-mergees: Dow-Dupont and Syngenta-ChemChina, and we can have a supergiant global corporation controlling most of the world’s food supply, which should help simplify the market and make it easier for the likes of Walmart to arrange to get food grown with its trademark imprinted on every grain, nut, fruit, vegetable, bean, meat cut and dairy molecule so consumers have confidence in what they are purchasing.

Never heard of ChemChina? China National Chemical Corporation is the largest chemical company in China. State-owned, they make tires, operate oil refineries, own the Malan Noodle fast-food chain and manufacture pesticides. Why would they want agribusiness Syngenta? Maybe because it’s one way to get GMO seed into China, which has resisted GMOs so far. As Chinese people eat more meat, they need to import more livestock feed; maybe with GMO seed, they think they can produce more feed themselves, reducing dependence on imports. (Be interesting to see if they pursue GMO MSG.)

Since Weavers Way is a citizen of the global marketplace, we have to stay aware of all of these events. In fact, our farms are getting ready to export baby bok choy to Greenland to help improve the Co-op’s trade imbalance. Right now, Weavers Way exports virtually nothing to other countries, and much of the food we sell is imported, so we’re a little out of balance. Greenland presents an opportunity to rebalance the Northwest Philly world trade imbalance. We can begin with both crop exports and knowledge exports. With global warming progressing, more of Greenland is warm enough to grow fresh vegetables, which our farmers are expert at, so they’ll be training southern Greenland residents in the ins and outs of crop planning, seed purchase, planting, fertilizing, weeding, pest control, harvesting and marketing, so Greenlanders can have homegrown veggies. Ironic that global warming will end up as a positive for our local economy. As global warming progresses and impacts Philadelphia more directly, our urban farmers will be able to grow tropical fruits like bananas. That should save on transportation of our No. 1-selling item (by weight), helping to make us a little more sustainable.

suggestions and responses:

s: “Thank you to Erik in Produce, who is unfailingly pleasant, approachable, intelligent.”

r: (Jean MA) Thanks! We like him too!

s: “Is it possible for us (Mt. Airy) to get the small baguettes? As a single person — hard to eat a whole one before it goes stale. I saw them in Chestnut Hill when I worked there. Thanks.”

r: (Matt MA) We carried small baguettes from Philly Bread for a little while but they didn’t sell very well here. I’m always willing to do special orders! Email me at matt@weaversway.coop.

s: “Can we get back the Gardein Mandarin Orange Crispy Chick’n? It is the best tasting of the Gardein products (in my opinion).”

r: (Kathryn MA) Thanks for the suggestion! We discontinued the orange crispy chicken because it was one of the slowest-selling frozen items. We needed to make space for other entrees that would be enjoyed by more members. Sorry to disappoint you! If you ever want to preorder them, a case of eight would be $26.57. Email mapreorder@weaversway.coop (for Chestnut Hill, chpreorder@weaversway.coop).

s: “What happened to the Martinelli’s apple juice (the individual ones in the fridge by the cereal)? Last time I was in, their shelf space had been replaced with another item and none were available. Have you ever had a Martinelli’s apple juice? They’re the best.”

r: (Kathryn MA) The Martinelli’s apple juice is my favorite drink in the store! It’s been out of stock at our supplier. We will have them back in the moment they are available to us; we order them three times every week.

s: “Rumor has it that valuable historical documents were discovered at one of the Ambler sites the Co-op has been looking at. As a member, and an archivist, I’d like to know more.”

r: (Norman) It turns out one of the sites under consideration was a recently built conventional grocery store. Modern grocery stores have lots of refrigeration. Both our Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill store have refrigeration “rack systems,” basically a series of compressors mounted on a rack on the roof, which provides the cooling power for most of our refrigeration. In larger grocery stores, it’s common to put the rack in its own little room, often located on the roof, sometimes referred to as a “penthouse.” In addition to housing the compressors, some penthouses also house the main connection point for electric service to the building, plus internet and phone service, and the alarm system. In a sense, it’s the energy and systems center of the building. During a recent inspection of the one property, in the penthouse Steve H. discovered scroll of architectural and engineering documents that were used to build the building. It was about 50 drawings, rolled up in a plastic tube that was mounted on the wall. This was a valuable discovery, assuming we go through with this project, as having these scrolls makes planning and constructing this building much easier, faster and cheaper. Hmm, scrolls of vital documents housed in a little building with limited access. Reminded me of synagogues where scrolls of important words are housed in a little cabinet. Add to this that some of the lease language for this building has the word “covenant” in it. So, as part of Weavers Way expansion efforts to Ambler, Steve discovered holy scrolls in the ark of the covenant. By the way, the type of compressors that were in the penthouse? Scroll compressors. Funny how the words play into it . . .