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| - After years of the 5 percent? up-charge, I am now a proud member. While I do not shop exclusively at the co-op for my groceries, I do enjoy the store in terms of its quality, mainly organic ingredients that I'm willing to pay a bit extra for.
I am here often, which lately means twice a week. As part of an internship I have this semester with Slow Food UW, we drop $400+ at the co-op each week on ingredients needed for the weekly community meals we prepare. The co-op has always been accommodating to our need for mass amounts of certain items, using up all of their bulk whole wheat pastry flour, setting aside crates of cauliflower heads, hundreds of eggs and dozens of pounds of carrots (the ginormous bag of juicing carrots is our friend).
All that said, I also visit the co-op for my own groceries.
The BULK section is excellent. I lose myself every time and get a little carried away loading up on NessAlla KOMBUCHA and filling bags with everything from coconut palm sugar, bittersweet chocolate chips and cacao nibs to dried spices and freshly ground almond and peanut butters. It is foodie heaven in this aisle and I make a point to flock here almost weekly to try out some new type of grain or flour each time.
The bakery is also smashing. It takes all the willpower in the world for me to not pick up the $1.99 bag of VEGAN COWBOY COOKIES sitting at the front of the checkout aisles. I cave on almost every visit to the co-op.
Something else I appreciate about the co-op is the selection of SMOKED SALMON near the dairy and deli areas of the store. Tucked away into a back fridge, there is an assortment of various smoked salmon for the most reasonable price of all grocery shops I've found in Madison. Their meat and dairy prices are also overall reasonable, especially when compared to Whole Foods, for example.
In terms of items and sections that I'll strategically avoid at the co-op, the prices of their fresh produce and their dried goods are unfortunately less than agreeable. I only head to the fresh fruit and vegetable section when I'm desperate and don't have time to make a trip to a different shop. In this case, Whole Foods is more ideal for produce and also dried goods that are still quality, but often cheaper.
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