New Azure Drop in Council Brings More Grocery Options
Living in a rural community comes with many benefits, but one challenge for many residents is access to a variety of quality foods. According to the USDA, rates of food insecurity, which are associated with a higher rate of obesity and multiple other chronic diseases, are higher in rural communities. This is despite the fact that rural communities are often also agricultural communities.
Many rural communities lack access to a grocery store, or have residents who bypass the local store and drive long distances to find more competitive prices or a different selection of products. Living in Adams County, it is common to hear of locals traveling down to Weiser or Ontario to go shopping. For families dealing with allergies or special diets, this often becomes routine.
One Council local, Kaitlynn Fellows, has one of those families. Tired of having to spend her weekends driving long distances to shop for her family, Fellows decided to do something about it, and started an Azure Standard food drop in Council.
Azure Standard is a food supplier and distributor, based out of Dufur, Oregon, that specializes in bulk and organic foods. They both grow and produce many of their own products, as well as carry goods from other brands. However, every product sold by Azure has to meet their standards, which include things like no artificial colors or sweeteners, and having new vendors sign non-GMO verification letters if they were not already certified. This makes them popular with people trying to eat an organic diet, or dealing with food allergies. To order from them, one has to be part of a “community” drop with a set order minimum. Azure has these community drops located all over the country. Previously, the closest one to Adams County was in Weiser, and several Adams County locals were driving down to Weiser once a month to pick up their orders.
For Kaitlynn Fellows, driving to Weiser on a weekday morning was not an option, as both she and her husband worked full time, so she decided to see what it would take to start an Azure drop in Council. The answer was a startling $12,550 order minimum. Because the already established route went to Weiser and then on to the Treasure Valley, coming to Council was over 100 miles out of the way, resulting in the extraordinary high minimum order for a community drop. “I was scared,” Fellows said when she heard the number, “I had to do a lot of praying, just trying to figure out if this was truly for our community.” Fellows said at first she kept that number to herself, uncertain that there would be enough interest, but as soon as she asked publicly to see who was interested, she knew it was doable based on the overwhelming response of positive interest she received. Still, the first month they fell short of the order minimum. By the second month, however, word had gotten out and they easily made the number with 35 different people ordering. Since then, it has only grown, with the last drop serving 55 different people and over 150 members on the local Facebook informational page.
While most people agree that more choices are good for the community, one concern about bringing Azure to Council was that it would take business away from already established local businesses. However, Fellows does not think that has been the case. In actuality, the sort of things people are buying from Azure they were not generally buying locally anyway, and many families were traveling to the Treasure Valley or Natural Grocers in McCall to do similar shopping. Kaitlynn Fellows, like many Azure customers, still buys her meat from local ranchers, for example, and buys whatever other goods she can locally. While Fellows said M&W has been great with special ordering and carrying more gluten free options, there is simply not a wide enough selection of organic or specialty foods available locally for families with allergies or special needs to find everything in town. Perhaps the biggest local competitor to Azure is the Baker’s Pantry in Council, which does carry many of the similar sort of products, such as bulk baking supplies and dry goods. However, when asked, Becky Lichtenberger at the Baker’s Pantry said they haven’t really noticed an effect on their sales. Though she was “apprehensive at first,” Lichtenberger said when they heard about it, “we have not seen a big drop in business.” Fellows also indicated that she did not think this was a negative for local businesses, and with people coming into Council from as far away as McCall and Cambridge she said “I think if anything it kind of brings a little extra business.” Indeed, it is not uncommon to see people immediately after the drop gathering at the coffee shop, or stopping by M&W.
To order from Azure, one must create an online account and select the Council Community Drop for delivery. However, it is not like a traditional online order, which comes directly to your doorstep. Customers must go to the drop site at a designated time to pick up their orders directly from the truck. Everyone helps unload the truck together and sort the goods. “One of my favorite things is the community of it,” said Fellows. Customers love seeing each other every month and socializing during and after the drop. “The community that it has brought…is pretty cool.”
The cutoff date for the next Council Azure drop is Sunday, November 27th, with an estimated delivery date of just before Thanksgiving. For more information about ordering or joining locally, Council Drop Coordinator Kaitlynn Fellows can be reached at kaitlynnfellows02@gmail.com .
For a community as small as Council, it is a blessing to have so many options for shopping locally, and the services provided by Azure Standard are filling one of the remaining holes in the needs of the community so people can spend more time locally. “It has allowed us to enjoy hunting and camping and doing things without having to spend an entire day going down to the valley,” said Fellows, and for that, she is grateful.
