In our three-part series of breaking down our mission statement, we come to the part about our community learning about a better food system.
“We are a socially responsible grocer, provisioning the highest quality produce and pantry staples. Our focus is on showcasing “best of class” regional and global craft foods with an emphasis on small producers. We advocate for our community to learn about a better food system.”
At our recent book club meeting, a longtime Jupiter shopper reminded me of something I’d told her years ago, when the store was new, and she was one of our first regulars. “You said it was your small-town grocery store,” she recalled, “where you’d run into friends and neighbors, catch up, exchange stories. That’s what you wanted to create.” Before I could respond, someone else in the room said simply: “You’ve built a third place.”
She’s right. The third place is the social space that isn’t home and isn’t work, the barbershop, the café, the bookstore, where community actually forms. This is something we didn’t put into our mission statement ten years ago, but it was always underneath it.
When we wrote about advocating for a better food system. We meant sourcing: local, clean, fair. We meant knowing your farmer. We meant the Snail of Approval on our door, which Slow Food Sonoma County gave us not just for what we sell but for how we sell it. As participants in a food culture, not just a food transaction. But a better food system is also a place. It’s the conversation at the register that runs a little long because someone’s pet did something too cute. It’s the regular whose order we start pulling before they finish asking. It’s the Cheers quality of a place where your name is known, and your presence is expected.
Some of you experience Jupiter mainly through this newsletter. Honestly, that counts too. This is where we share what we’re excited about, what we believe in, what’s growing and what’s worth paying attention to.
Ten years of this mission statement. We’ve spent the last several issues taking it apart, phrase by phrase, to see if it still holds. It does. This last piece, the one we never quite wrote down, might be the part that holds it all together.