What’s New in Bulk?
About Bulk
The Bulk Department added 48 new products with Harmony’s recent expansion. The new products are spread amongst dry bulk, liquids and coffee. The new bins for all 3 are very user friendly and easy to maintain. With the added aisle space it makes it easy to shop bulk with a shopping cart.
Bulk added a number of new pasta’s without eliminating existing ones. The new pastas are either gluten free or whole wheat varieties per customer requests. The gluten free pastas are brown rice pastas or quinoa pastas. Other gluten free products that are new include; sprouted quinoa, germinated brown rice, white rice flour and Bob’s Red Mill gluten free all purpose flour. And be sure to look for all of the existing gluten free products bulk has always carried.
Coffee added one new vendor Equal Exchange. It’s a fair trade coffee, tea and chocolate company that only offer fair trade and organic products. The tea and chocolate can be found in the grocery aisles. Coffee has seen some price increases but I’m still trying to keep the overall price down by including a local roaster out of Bagley, MN named Roma Kawa. The other roaster we carry is Alakef out of Duluth, MN featuring fair trade organic and conventional coffees. Be sure to stop in for one of our coffee tastings put on by Alakef.
Other places bulk expanded were nuts and confections. We added a nut roaster out of Minneapolis called Barsy’s Almonds that roasts once a week. We carry the Hotties and Smokies in Bulk. Bulk also added more organic nuts including org. dark choc. almonds and org. tamari almonds. There are additional carob products including malt sweetened carob almonds and non-sweetened carob almonds. Other organic and raw nuts are found in our re-pack cooler along with great varieties of dried fruit.
Bulk liquids added only a few new products, but greatly improved the valves for dispensing thick liquids. The new products are from a company out of Minneapolis called Restore. By bringing Restore in we can offer 2 choices for laundry liquid and 2 choices for dish liquid. Bulk also carries their soft or gentle soap for customers to refill their hand-soap dispensors.
Flour and grains have seen a large expansion in the bulk department. Natural Way Mills out of Middle River, MN. is our biggest provider and we can carry anything they offer. We currently have a large selection in bulk bins, 5# bags and 25# bags for customers to choose from. Bulk also carries a large variety of rice and beans including some exotic rices from around the world.
On October 28th the membership gathered at the United Methodist Church meeting room. Harmony’s staff prepared a fantastic tex mex dinner for our owners and it was a wonderful chance to see familiar faces and a few new faces as well. Board treasurer Mary Overlie led a great discussion on ways Harmony could strengthen the community’s connection to local and organic foods prior to the start of the official meeting. The question is also posted to Harmony’s Facebook page so if you have some ideas head over to FB and post on our wall.
Harmony’s Frozen Department received quite a boost from the expansion. The new freezer units are beautiful, huge and easy to use. It was even easier to fill them up with all of our already popular staples and the great suggestions from our very involved shoppers!
