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Last updated:
Feb 5, 2012
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Neechi
Foods Co-op
As Neechi Foods Co-Op completes its 20th year of operation and prepares
for a big expansion in the spring of 2010 we wish you warm season’s
greetings and invite you to take advantage of our unique array of specialty and grocery offerings.
Features of the Month
Update on Neechi Commons
Past Postings
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Specialty Features - June:
Ø
In case you
haven’t heard, the commercial spring fishing season has just opened – the
earliest opening ever! Over 400 lbs of high quality lakeside frozen
pickerel fillets
have just arrived at
Neechi. As usual, Neechi’s price is way below the big chain store prices and
the fishers get much higher returns selling direct to Neechi.
Ø
Twenty years ago
Neechi started selling
Bothwell cheese.
- Bothwell, which continues as a successful cheese factory located at New
Bothwell, south of Winnipeg, was then a dairy producers’ cooperative. At
that time the large supermarket chains tried to push the co-op into offering
them special volume discounts but Bothwell refused. - After all these years
we’ve come to take their competitively priced, top quality cheese for
granted and haven’t promoted it for a long time. But, with rising interest
in quality foods and the huge benefits of ‘buying local’, we should be. So
that is what we are doing. Right now we have seven varieties in stock with
more supplies arriving on Tuesday.
Ø
And,
conveniently, our impressive array of
Minan and Crampton local jams,
featuring regionally harvested berries, are located in the same display
cooler as the Bothwell cheese.
Ø
And this display
is right beside
Neechi’s own, famous, fresh-baked bannock.
You can get it in loaves or as biscuits (to go with your jam and cheese, of
course).
Ø
Or you could make
a fancy cheese sauce to go with the world’s best quality, best priced
wild rice,
which is regularly shipped to us from another Aboriginal worker cooperative,
located at Wabigoon First Nation in northwestern Ontario. – They started up
about the same time as Neechi did, a couple of decades ago, and Neechi
quickly became their anchor distributor in Winnipeg.
Ø
Alongside our
specialty foods we also have restocked our supply of beautifully illustrated
Aboriginal children
books and books by leading Aboriginal authors.
Neechi Commons
June Update:
This
brings us to an update on our big expansion plans, which include a
first-class Aboriginal bookstore. We remain on track to open Neechi Commons
Community Business Complex, in the first quarter of 2011. The Commons will
include a neighbourhood supermarket with about 7,000 sq. ft. of retail
space, including a courtyard fruit and vegetable market. On the second floor
mezzanine we’ll have a lovely cafeteria-style restaurant, featuring local
foods and overlooking the interior courtyard and Main Street. Smaller
enterprises also will be accessible from the courtyard, on both the main and
mezzanine floors. The complex will be heated and cooled by geothermal
loops.
A big
thank you to those of you have participated in our integrated design process
and to St. Mary’s Road United Church for helping to finance the process. And
a very special thank you to the pupils and teachers of David Livingstone and
Norquay elementary schools for the lovely artwork that will start
appearing next week in the windows of the old California Fruit
premises at 879 Main.
Please ask
folks that you know to contact us if:
1.
They might have a serious interest in participating in Neechi
Commons, as tenants or suppliers. - Our core vision is a retail complex
with a neighbourhood, Aboriginal and co-op development orientation and a
high-profile emphasis on regionally harvested and processed foods.
2.
They would like to be contacted when we are ready to circulate
information about Neechi investment shares.
3.
They would like to have their addresses added to our e-mail promotion
list.
Neechi Foods Community Store, 325 Dufferin Ave., between Main and Salter (a
few minutes north of Portage and Main)
Open Monday to Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm, & Sunday 12 noon – 5 pm. City-wide
deliveries –
in our really cute, brand new delivery van!
J
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Past Postings
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Invitation to Attend Update Meeting for
Neechi Commons (new grocery store on location
of former California Fruit Market)
see Poster re event
Customer Invitation:
As part of an Integrated Design Process for Neechi Commons Community
Business Complex on Main St., Neechi Foods has held a series of meetings
with neighbourhood residents, potential business tenants and suppliers,
non-profit organizations and technical resource people.
A culmination
Integrated Design meeting for Neechi Commons, building on previous special
group meetings, is being held this coming
Thursday, April 1, 5:30
p.m., at Mount Carmel Clinic, 886 Main St.
A notice is attached. The meeting is open to
potential business stakeholders, neighbourhood residents, non-profit
organizations, and customers from other parts of the city. You are welcome
to participate if you wish. (Please let us know if you plan to attend.).
As you may know,
Neechi’s plan to open a store this summer has been replaced by the
Integrated Design Process for the whole complex, which we are aiming to open
early in 2011. In addition to Neechi’s own store, there will be a spacious
marketplace courtyard, and offices upstairs. There also is a very large
basement.
And, while I have
your attention
J,
our existing store at 325 Dufferin just received a wide range of Fair Trade
Coffees and Teas, to accompany our usual specialty foods – bannock, wild
rice, pickerel, jams, etc.
Neechi Foods Community Store, 325
Dufferin Ave., between Main and Salter (a few minutes drive from Portage and
Main)
Open Monday to Saturday, 10 am – 6
pm, & Sunday 12 noon – 5 pm
On Good
Friday we will be open from 10 am to 3 pm. We will be closed on Easter
Sunday.
poster of event
Poster re Event |
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Neechi's expansion will bring
another food store to Main Street
By: Geoff Kirbyson
Winnipeg Free Press 16/09/2009
A North End institution is branching out from its
long-time home in hopes of creating a destination location that can
provide healthier food options to many of its patrons.
Neechi Foods Co-op has finalized plans to expand
from 325 Dufferin Avenue to 865 Main Street to be the anchor tenant in a
retail, restaurant and food complex to be known as Neechi Commons. The
project, which is scheduled to encompass a minimum of 25,000 square feet
when it's completed, will break ground in the next three weeks, according
to Russ Rothney, treasurer at Neechi.
"We haven't been able to keep up with the demand for
our in-store food preparation, like bannock and bannock pizza. The ovens
are going all the time and it's crowded cooking there. We have more and
more catering business and we're looking to expand into the wholesaling
area as well. We can't do all that in the old space," Rothney said.
The move by Neechi fills a long-time need on North
Main, which has been largely abandoned by grocery stores over the past two
decades.
"We're hoping this will be a major shot at turning
North Main into a retail destination, not just for the neighbourhood but
for commuter traffic as well," Rothney said.
Neechi Commons is being funded in part by both the
federal and Manitoba governments, which have each contributed $1.3
million. In total, it will cost between $4 million and $6 million to
build. Other financial support is being provided by the Assiniboine Credit
Union and the Jubilee Fund.
Rothney said the high-visibility space will enable
Neechi to maintain a better inventory of healthy and high-nutritional
foods, which isn't possible currently because most of its customer traffic
is sporadic and comes in shortly after welfare cheques arrive in the mail.
He said the complex will include a full-range
grocery store as well as aboriginal specialty foods, including wild rice,
wild blueberries and fish, and aboriginal crafts, books and music. There
will also be an emphasis on regionally-grown fruits and vegetables.
Rothney said it will take between two and three
years to develop the entire site but it's hoped the new Neechi location
will cut the ribbon in February.
He said Neechi is considering converting its current
location into a food prep site for the new one, It also plans to maintain
a small deli and convenience store on Dufferin to accommodate seniors in
the area.
Rothney said Neechi's staff are "fed up" with the
negative social conditions and problems in the area and are excited to
spearhead an initiative that will provide much-needed employment to
aboriginal people.
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Neechi's
Holiday
Features:
AUTHENTIC HANDCRAFTED MOCCASINS – adult sizes @ $45, children
$25; wide selection; healthy footwear, made by Aboriginal artisans;
commercially valued artisans and best retail prices in the world!
OTHER HANDICRAFTS AND ART PIECES – selected offerings of
mukluks, gauntlets, Aboriginal prints, dream catchers and greeting cards
NORTHERN STAR FOUR-DIRECTION BAGS - $22 each; from a sister
worker co-operative that is also renowned for their star blankets (plains
tradition honour gifts); for more information and star blanket
illustrations please go to:
http://www.northernstar.coop/
ABORIGINAL CHILDREN’S BOOKS – wide selection; beautifully
illustrated
OUTSTANDING AUTHORS – Two new releases: Beatrice Mosionier,
Come Walk with Me (her own story, 25 years after her classic, In
Search of April Raintree (also available at Neechi) + David Alexander
Robertson & Madison Blackstone, The Life of Helen Betty Osborne (a
graphic novel); also other Aboriginal authors, including Ray St.
Germaine, I Wanted to be Elvis so what was I doing in Moose Jaw,
and Duncan Mercredi, Duke of Windsor (poetry)
BANNOCK – plain $3.25 / regular plain loaf or raisin $3.45,
$5.50 large plain or raisin $5.90, + special orders (whole wheat,
blueberry, etc.); Neechi’s signature product and hottest selling item,
baked daily, 7 days a week
WILD
BLUEBERRIES – $55 / 10 lbs, $30 / 5 lbs or $6.29 / lb; clean,
hand-picked and frozen in September; from NW Ontario
PICKEREL $7.49 / lb; fresh frozen and delivered direct to
Neechi; top quality, good return to fishers and far cheaper than chain
store prices!
WILD
RICE – Regular Grain $8.57 / lb + Broken $4.55 / lb; from an
Aboriginal worker co-operative in northwestern Ontario, this is the best
wild rice in the world in terms of both nutrition and taste; high
protein, high fibre, low fat; unlike most commercial wild rice it is grown
on natural stands in the Boreal Forest, not on rice paddies in the U.S.;
no chemicals have been added to make the kernels shiny black
MINAN JAMS, TEAS AND RELISHES – feature wild berries and herbs
harvested in Manitoba
BULK
RED POTATOES - $13.79 / 50-lb bag (from local farms)
MEALS AND REFRESHMENT CATERING – Bannock pizza, stews, chilli,
soups, pickerel, wild rice, chicken wings, fruit and veggie trays, banana
bread, cookies, etc.
Neechi Foods
Community Store*
(Mon – Sat 10am - 6pm;
Sun noon - 5pm)
325 Dufferin Ave. (between Salter and Main,
Jarvis & Selkirk,
a few minutes from Portage & Main)
Winnipeg, MB, R2W 2Y1;
customer line: (204) 586-5597; office : (204) 586-3798; fax: (204)
589-4862
*operated by a worker-owned cooperative
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