local heroes
La Montañita Co-op BEST RETAIL
An Interview with Karolyn Cannata-Winge, Marketing Director at La Montañita Co-op
Giuditta Paci, deli department team leader, Westside store. Photo courtesy of La Montañita Co-op.
La Montañita Co-op is a natural and organic food market owned by sixteen thousand New Mexicans. We spoke with Karolyn CannataWinge, the Co-op’s marketing director, about their work in local food and the community.
How did the Co-op get started and why? La Montañita Co-op is New Mexico’s largest community-owned natural and organic food market. We opened our first store serving three hundred families in 1976 at the corner of Central and Girard in Albuquerque. We’re really excited to be celebrating forty years serving New Mexico in 2016. Since then, we have grown to approximately sixteen thousand active members. We have six locations in New Mexico (four in Albuquerque, one in Santa Fe, and one in Gallup) and a distribution center all bringing quality organic and/or local products to our community. 18
edible Santa Fe | FALL 2015
How does the Co-op inform local food? Through our monthly newsletter; weekly owner eBlasts; attending local events, like the 2015 Naked Food Fair; and our marketing efforts in local print publications, radio, and television (to mention a few). La Montañita informs and educates our potential customers on who we are, how we support local farmers and ranchers, what differentiates us from our competition, and why shopping with us is a special and unique experience.
Who inspires you? I am proud to have joined the La Montañita team as marketing director in October 2014. I’m inspired by all of our staff and the daily efforts made to make our customers' shopping experience exceptional. Our customers also inspire me because they are making a choice to