Hi all! We hope you’ve been enjoying Fall and all it has to offer! Here at Cornell, the students have been working hard so Anabel’s can continue to serve the community you all love!
Read below to see what we’ve been up to!
Give and Gather Fundraiser!
Together, HADM 4315 and HADM 4340, and the students of Anabel’s grocery, are putting on a fundraising event! This night of food and fun will help Anabel's to continue to subsidize our essential products and fresh local produce at below cost so that all students have access to good, nutritious food. We are looking for any way to decrease the amount of students that feel the effects of food insecurity. We are hoping to raise 10k dollars, and you can help us on our mission with your donations. If you’re in the area please do consider coming out to the event on Saturday November 4th! The students of the Hotel School will be preparing a fine dining menu for you to enjoy! Some items that will be offered at this meal are: pork belly potato crisps, pumpkin ricotta fritters, mini Thanksgiving sandwiches, oyster mushrooms on rice crisps, pear and caramel pastry, and hibiscus cake! If you are unable to attend, there is still an opportunity to make a donation through this link.
Some more information on the event below:
Date: November 4, 2023
Time: 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Location: The Terrace Restaurant, Ground Floor Statler Hall, Cornell University
Address: 130 Statler Drive, Ithaca, 14853
Free Parking will be available at the Hoy Parking Garage
Student admission: $12 in advance, $15 at the door
General admission: $20 in advance, $25 at the door
Raffle Tickets: $5 for 5 Raffle Tickets
Anabel’s Impact
Anabel’s community has seen major growth this semester! Our mid semester report show store traffic is up 51% as compared to this time last year. We are happy to see that we are reaching more people this semester through various on campus events, and rigorous marketing.
This semester we have been able to increase the percentage of our products that are sold below cost. During fall of 2022, 30% of our products were sold to students below cost to allow for affordability for essential items. Now we are up to 44% of our product mix being subsidized! This was a decision we knew we had to make as food prices continue to rise in the United States. We are sticking to our goal of supplying affordable food for as many people as we can. Generous donations to our subsidy fund make this all possible! Below is a list of products sold at the same price as Aldi’s. Our products are priced at Aldi’s price but are organic and locally grown. We care about feeding people nutritious food to fuel their physical and mental health.
Student Work
Our Collaboration and Education team has been hard at work getting students involved in various events. Recently we had a dumpling making event with Irene Li (Cornell ‘15) focused around reducing food waste and using what is typically discarded to make a delicious dish! She is the recipient of a Leadership award from the James Beard Foundation for her hard work and dedication to creating a better food world. We were honored to get to spend the afternoon learning from her!
Read more about Irene Li and her work here!
Our Collaboration and Education team also arranges pop up tables around campus to spread the word on Anabel’s mission and show students recipes they can make at home with Anabel’s ingredients!
We have another event coming up to educate students on sustainable agriculture and small scale farming! Education on the local food system is extremally important to get people involved in making change. Students enjoy knowing where their food is coming from and getting to see the processes that get it from the farmers to the store. We love getting the opportunity to connect students to their food system as it is a major part of all of our lives that we tend to take for granted.
A look into AEM 3385
Students currently enrolled in AEM 3385 have had the honor of having some amazing guest speakers come into class to discuss how we can take what we have learned in class and apply it to make a real difference in the world. Their business models are inspirational to those who seek to continue work in food justice after college.
Black farm owner, Dee Baptist from Fort Baptist Farm explained that their family business values people over profit. At Fort Baptist Farm, they are invested in continuing the generational knowledge and love that goes into every seed they plant. They believe that food not only nourishes the body but nourishes the soul. They want to get nutritious food to as many people as they can in their community and do this via CSA shares with some reserved for those who are low income, BIPoC, or single parent homes.
Most recently, we had Stefan Senders and Thor Oechsner, the men behind Wide Awake Bakery and Oechsner Farms come in and talk to us about the importance of supporting local agriculture. Oechsner Farms believes in the integrity of their product. They stone grind their grains to maintain the dense nutrient profile of the crop. This sets them apart from the flour mills that use rollers to grind their grain. The rollers heat up the flour, causing it to lose nutrients in the process. Stone grinding is a slower process but it yields a much higher quality product. They sell their flour to Wide Awake Bakery where they turn it into delicious breads and pastries that are loved by many in the Ithaca area.
One student in the class said “I think one thing that stuck with me from the speakers today [Wide Awake Bakery and Oechsner Farms] was the sentiment that they purposefully make the fresh flour affordable to all in an effort to make the choice of purchasing local produce easier on the consumer, instead of jacking up the prices since they know that people have to buy their flour regardless”
Here are links to the speakers websites if you wish to learn more about their causes!
New Offerings
Last semester we saw students interested in having frozen fruit available in the store. Now, we have it! Thanks to an engaged mini-grant from the SC Johnson School of Business, we were able to get a new freezer in store for frozen fruit! Now, shoppers can come in with their own containers or purchase a reusable silicone bag to buy frozen fruit in bulk. We firmly believe in selling in bulk so people can take what the need and waste less food. We also offer a discount to shoppers who bring their own container for their bulk items!
Subscribe to receive our Quarterly newsletter!
Please do consider subscribing to this newsletter so you can stay up to date with what’s going on at Anabel’s! This newsletter will likely go out 4 times a year and will provide any updates on major events and what our community impact is looking like! Thank you for all you have done and continue to do to keep the love of Anabel’s going for years to come!
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