Join us for one of our favorite events of the year – Chocolove chocolate and wine tasting! Sample a variety of delicious chocolates paired with a lovely assortment of wine, as well as some decadent samplings from the Co-op Kitchen! While you’re here, pick up a yummy gift and a local greeting card for your special Valentine.

Join Sheen Perkins of Agape Oils for this FREE lecture in the Tidal Creek Co-op Community Center. Learn how to make your own delicious and therapeutic chocolate truffles, oozing with love and romance as you experience the healing benefits of essential oils. Combine the sensuousness of raw cacao and other raw super-foods with the healing benefits of essential oils to create the perfect package: Therapeutic Chocolate Truffles. Register at Customer Service or by calling 910.799.COOP.

Please join us for our Co-op Owner Store Tour, created to help answer your questions and welcome you to Tidal Creek Co-op.  The session will include a brief orientation and overview of Co-op basics including; Tidal Creek owner benefits, a quick store tour, and tips on how to shop and save at the Co-op.  Open to all Tidal Creek Co-op owners.  Please gather upstairs in the Community Center.  RSVP at Customer Service or by calling 910.799.COOP.

Future Co-op Owner Store Tours will be held the last Wednesday of each month.

Bring the little ones to the Co-op for story time and a fun activity! Meet in the Tidal Creek Community Center. Parents are welcome to stay, or get your shopping done while the kids read and play!

We’re brewing up something special again this year.  You may enter to win Tidal Creek’s Free Coffee for a Year contest with every purchase of bulk coffee between now and March 31st!  Choose any amount from our bulk dispensers of organic, fair trade, shade grown, and/or local coffee.  Purchase at the register.  Place your name and phone on an entry slip and drop it in the jar.  Do this up to once per day until the drawing on March 31st, when you could be drawn as the winner of Free Coffee for a Year; to receive 1 pound of coffee, any roast available in stock, every week from April 2012 through March 2013!  So what are you waiting for?  Come on down to Tidal Creek Co-op to see what all the buzz is about!

Tidal Creek’s 6th Annual Winter Wine Sale includes 25 wines at clearance prices. Stock up and stay cozy throughout the winter months. Wines may be purchased by the case to receive an additional 10% discount. Sale prices will continue through January, while supplies last. Eat, drink, and be merry!

With concerns on the rise about the health and environmental impacts of genetically engineered foods (GMOs), Tidal Creek Co-op will take some time during October’s Coop Month celebrations to highlight another nationwide event: Non-GMO Month.

In the spirit of the 5th and 7th Coop principles, “Education, Training, and Information,” and “Concern for Community,” cooperative grocers across North America will host programs designed to raise consumer awareness, empower shoppers to confidently make Non-GMO choices, and protect the long-term availability of food and products that have not been genetically engineered.

Throughout October, you will find shelf tags on products verified by the Non-GMO Project, a nonprofit organization working to ensure the continued availability of non-GMO food and ingredients. Tidal Creek Co-op will donate 10% from the sales of these items in October, to benefit the Non-GMO Project. This is a real opportunity for you to support this grassroots effort, while enjoying the safety and purity of a GMO-free product.

GMOs (or “genetically modified organisms”) are organisms that have been created through the gene-splicing techniques of biotechnology (also called genetic engineering, or GE). This relatively new science allows DNA from one species to be injected into another species in a laboratory, creating combinations of plant, animal, bacteria, and viral genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods.

Unfortunately, misinformation about GMOs is common. Though plantings of GMO Crops reached all-time highs last year, with 93% of soybeans, 86% of corn, and 93% of the cotton planted in the United States genetically modified, the public knows little about them, their prevalence in our food, or how to avoid them. Further, the biotech companies who control this new technology have effectively prevented researchers from publishing studies on the potential risks of GMO consumption.

Even without any science showing GMOs to be safe, genetically modified foods do not need to be labeled in North America. And it is estimated that over eighty percent of conventional processed food contains genetically modified ingredients. Presented with these concerns, a group of conscientious retailers put their heads together to create the Non-GMO Project.

The Non-GMO Project believes that you have a right to know what’s in your food, and a right to choose Non-GMO. To this end, they maintain North America’s only third-party standard for GMO avoidance. Since the Project’s inception, thousands of products have been verified to this rigorous standard, and many of your favorite foods may already bear the Non-GMO Project Verification Mark on their packaging.

This seal indicates that the ingredients and practices used in making your food have met a strict standard focused on traceability, segregation, and testing of high-GMO-risk ingredients (e.g. corn, soy, canola, sugar, etc.) Keep an eye out for this trustworthy label while you shop for dinner, or your favorite snack.

Tidal Creek Co-op’s Buying Standard states, “We work to ensure that our products are free of GMOs; hydrogenated oils; and artificial colors, sweeteners, preservatives and flavors.” United Natural Foods, Tidal Creek’s main distributor, has taken a firm position on GMOs, having issued the following statement:

“United Natural Foods strongly and unequivocally supports Sustainable Agriculture and Organic Farming, and is therefore significantly concerned about the proliferation of Genetically Modified Organisms in foods. Based upon the dangers, known and unknown, presented by GMOs, United Natural Foods has taken the following position:
• We support a moratorium on the use of GMOs until in-depth research on their long-range consequences has been completed.
• We support the consumer’s right to know and hold that all products containing GMO ingredient should be labeled as such.
• We support the establishment of GMO-free standards and a certification process.
• We support the Non-GMO Project and its efforts to protect consumers, organic standards and the environment by establishing an independent standard and process for verification of non-GMO status for agricultural products.
• We are committed to patiently and persistently working with our suppliers to determine what they can guarantee about the GMO status of their products, and to provide GMO-free products as much as possible.
• We support the education of consumers regarding the presence of genetically modified products in the nation’s food supply. We provide financial and other support to selected regional and national organizations working to educated consumers about GMOs.

Please support Co-op Month and Non-GMO Month by purchasing Non-GMO Project Verified products at Tidal Creek Co-op in October. For a complete list of participating products, or for more information on GMOs, visit: www.nongmoproject.org

You’re encouraged to comment on a petition being filed with the FDA to mandate labeling of foods containing GMOs.  Go to www.justlabelit.org and tell the FDA, “we have a right to know what’s in our food.”

Bring the little ones to an extra special Story Hour at the Co-op! We hope you can join us for “Winter Holiday Stories” and Decorating Co-op Kitchen Cookies! Please RSVP for this fun, FREE event in the Co-op Community Center. Stop by the Customer Service Desk or call 910.799.COOP to register.