Affordable sustainability found down South

Think maintaining a healthy lifestyle at a low cost in New York City is an impossible challenge? South Bronx Food Cooperative Executive Director Zena Nelson thinks differently.

The SBxFC, Nelson’s brain child, combines the healthy options of Whole Foods with prices cheaper than those of a standard supermarket, all while fostering a supportive community spirit.

Isaac Purdue, the Cooperative’s general consultant, described the Coop as a community initiative to enable South Bronxites to live a healthful and affordable lifestyle. “This community has the worst health statistics of any neighborhood in New York. Part of it is diet. We have the highest percentage of hypertension and diabetes,” Purdue said. The SBxFC has been in business for about a year and a half but the new location on Third Avenue opened January 17 and is now open five days per week.

According to its mission statement, the SBxFC aims “to provide affordable and nutritious food ... while empowering the local community by encouraging good health, providing relevant job skills and fostering environmentally responsible activities through democratic cooperation.” Because the Coop is not a profit-based organization, members provide labor for discounted products, making healthy and fair trade food available to people of all socioeconomic backgrounds.

Beyond fostering healthy eating, the SBxFC encourages other wholesome lifestyle choices by offering free yoga classes and seminars in healthy cooking, recycling, composting, forums for members to ask questions of nutritionists and dietitians.

Students who wish to join the South Bronx team can expect to pay a nonrefundable one-time fee of $60 and work one three-hour shift per month. In return, members generally save 10 to 20 percent off their grocery bill and have a say in the management and direction of the Cooperative. A one-hour orientation for new members gives them the basics on what community membership means in the South Bronx.

Although some Manhattanites participate in Coop, most of its patrons come from the Bronx. “We have a very vibrant, very strong South Bronx community spirit,” Purdue said. According to Purdue, the Coop members are primarily low-income Hispanic and African American citizens—a departure from the Brooklyn yuppie crowd that frequents the Park Slope Coop.

In addition to health and sustainability efforts at the Coop itself, SBxFC is working with Nos Quedamos (Spanish for “We’re Staying”) community organization group to ensure continued affordable housing in the neighborhood.

Purdue described how he first got involved with the Coop while speaking to an organization on food policy: “The person who proceeded me [Zena Nelson] gave such a dynamic presentation. At that point it [the SBxFC] was just an idea she was trying to get across, and I thought ‘I have no doubt there will be a South Bronx Food Coop with the intensity of this person.’”