Part of my job is to keep on top of “grocery trends,” so the Co-op can best meet the needs of our member-owners (so the theory goes). 

The grocery industry is a competitive one — think of how many places you can go to buy a banana — so a whole cottage industry has sprung up to advise grocers on consumer buying habits.

The bone broth we sell? That’s a trend. Cold-brew coffee. Kombucha on tap. Elderberry water. All trends. Yes, it’s all a little ridiculous. 

But sometimes the trend prognosticators are right, so I sat up when, in my latest issue of Supermarket News — what, you don’t subscribe? — the headline asked: “Are Ethnic Markets the Next Big Trend?” 

By “ethnic markets,” the folks at Supermarket News are talking about grocery chains that cater to America’s growing Hispanic and Asian populations. Private equity, its nose trained to sniff out profits, is dumping money into big chains like Fiesta Mart, Mi Pueblo and Cardenas. 

I’ve never set foot in any of these places, so I don’t know what I’m missing, but that’s OK: Philadelphia has lots of pretty awesome ethnic grocers already. 

We’ve got Rieker’s (German), Krakus (Polish), Altomonte’s (Italian) and NetCost (Russian), to name but a few. These markets don’t just sell ethnic foods, they serve as a portal to another culture. So if a round-trip ticket to Seoul isn’t in your budget, spend a couple of hours at H Mart on Cheltenham Avenue and Old York Road for a little Korean immersion. 

There used to be a lot more grocers around here catering to specific ethnic groups, but as our city has effectively mixed us all up, our connections to the Old Country, wherever that was, have faded. 

But in its place, a whole new ethnicity has evolved: The ethnic Philadelphian. 

I figure it this way. I was born here. So were both of my parents and all of my grandparents. If there’s a place to which I’m culturally tethered, it’s here, not some faraway land in Europe. 

We have our own cuisine, accent, cultural icons and local heroes. There’s a Philadelphia Sound of music, a Philadelphia School of architecture, even a Philadelphia Style of ice cream. 

There are things that ethnic Philadelphians do, things we believe, things we eat and things we know that no one else does. 

We know why there’s no 1st or 14th Street. We make a much bigger deal out of New Year’s Day than we do about New Year’s Eve. We can place odds on the next politician headed for the clink. 

We’ve developed a unique, borderline-adversarial relationship with our professional sports teams. Thanks to their historically dismal track records, our sincere love for them barely masks our seething hostility. 

We even have our own diaspora. Knots of ethnic Philadelphians, living in exile in places like Atlanta and Houston, have set up social groups where they get together to munch on imported Taskykakes and complain about the Eagles. 

The best part is our shared ethnicity transcends our racial divide. The African-American guy who lives across the street is as much an ethnic Philadelphian as I am. 

For Weavers Way, perhaps this presents an opportunity. Maybe we can be an ethnic market, a Philadelphia Market. 

When most people hear “Philadelphia Cuisine,” they tend to focus on our iconic street food: hoagies, roast pork, cheesesteaks. Which of us has not hotly debated where to get the best of these classics?

But our traditional cuisine goes beyond what you can find at places like D’Alessandro’s and Tony Luke’s. Only around here can you find scrapple, pork roll, tomato pie, snapper soup, pepper pot soup, water ice, butter cake and fried oysters served with chicken salad. 

Actually, you might be able to find some of this stuff in other places, along with a whole catalog of foods that can trace their genesis to our city — Stromboli, funnel cake, root beer, soft pretzels — but no one does any of it quite like we do. 

It’s part of our cultural DNA.

I think we at the Co-op should play our part. So if you see Zitner’s Butter Krak eggs on the shelves this spring, Sweetzel’s spiced wafers in the fall or some snapper simmering at the soup station, consider it all “ethnic” food. Our ethnic food.

Hey, we’re just keeping up with the trends.

See you around the Co-op.