The Davis Food Co-op exists to serve as a community store and gathering place for current and future owners, so they have:
A thriving cooperatively owned business,
Access to healthful, local and high-quality food,
A store that makes environmental sustainability a priority and,
Staff who are valued, educated and motivated.

The last but definitely not least piece of our Ends Statement is “staff who are valued, educated and motivated”. This is done in various ways throughout the store. This starts by aligning with cooperative principle #7, concern for the community. Our full-time staff has the option to get great medical, dental, and optical vision. These plans are outlined in our board packet for Oct 2020, which will be posted on our Board of Directors page in November. Along with benefits, we plan financially for minimum wage increases and give everyone a raise to prevent wage compression. 

Each department has regular huddles to ensure staff is informed on department updates. You may have even heard the Deli chanting at the end of a huddle in the mornings! We also have store-wide huddles twice a week with at least one representative from each department. We hold them outside to ensure social distancing is being followed. Throughout the staff rooms in the store, we also post a bi-weekly newsletter, loaded with department updates, new staff, education topics, Green Team updates, and acknowledgments from fellow staff. 

We have been revamping our new and existing staff training. You may see front-end staff with a “training” badge on. We want to ensure that our cashiers feel valued, appreciated, confident and have the right tools to give their best to the shoppers and Owners. Our Marketing department has been working hard turning many of our previously in-person training into videos. This ensures that our staff is being trained and educated while following necessary Covid guidelines and precautions. 

Besides training, we encourage staff to attend Teaching Kitchen classes and assist in videos on our social media feed. Our staff is very talented. We have plant wizzes, painters, cartoonists, nutritionists, musicians, and dancers. We currently have art by Rayvyn from our Wellness department and earrings by Olivia from our Produce department for sale in-store! 

We engage with raffles to win prizes and gift cards. We enter into external competitions, like the Palm Done Right video competition, with staff as the actors and dancers. And this past week you have probably seen staff dressed up for Halloween. We are holding a staff competition for the best individual costume and best group costume. Keep an eye on our social media for our costumes!