Find Out Where Your Food Comes From

Deep Roots Market

600 N. Eugene St. www.deeprootsmarket.com

At Deep Roots Market, the human cost of producing food is just as important as the instore customer experience.

The local co-op grocery store is committed to making sure the people who plant, harvest and package its products are paid fairly and treated well.

General Manager Nicole Villano said that often means higher sticker prices.

“We get misunderstood by being some expensive store. That’s not what we are,” she said. “We are just pushing the cooperative movement away from enslaving people to produce food, which is what the corporate model is.”

Deep Roots is a co-op, meaning it is owned by people in the community who buy shares of equity in the business.

Anyone can become an owner, and every owner has an equal amount of voting power so that those with more money don’t control the business. Owners earn rewards for shopping and get a discounted price on the store’s hot bar. They also receive dividends of any surplus revenue. Villano said that means any money Deep Roots makes goes back into the local economy.

She has a word for people who choose to participate in ownership of and shop at co-ops like Deep Roots: heroes.

“Money spent at corporate grocery stores is funnelled out of the community and into wealthy corporations’ bank accounts,” she said. “At Deep Roots, those dollars are spent within the community over and over and over again.”