We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cindy Gentry. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cindy below.

Alright, Cindy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission the drives your brand?

Local farmers help to create food security throughout our communities. But Arizona’s urban and smaller-acreage farms are disappearing fast. We must protect our local farmers: where will our food come from if there are no farms? Sun Produce Cooperative helps small farmers get their food into more places and especially into the hands of our state’s most vulnerable children and adults.

In 2015 a group of Phoenix area growers came together to discuss opportunities and challenges they had in common. Over the course of a year and a half, through a lot of stories shared, they began building relationships of trust. The farmers started to see each other less as competitors for the same dollars and sales. They saw that by having a centrally-organized group that could help them find new customers and outlets, pick up and deliver their produce, they would have more time to stay on the farm and grow produce. They could do some marketing together, even purchase seeds and packaging together. Sun Produce Cooperative was born during those conversations. It incorporated as an Arizona non-profit in 2017. Its mission is to increase access to healthy local foods while strengthening the viability and capacity of farms to keep them on the land. Today it works with 43 farms and serves more than 50 customers each week, in 7 of the states 15 counties.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Growing up, gathering around the table where food was served, was a rich and humorous way to get to know my family, our history, our culture, share stories, ideas, dreams, expectations and discuss the events of the day. Connecting around food took on a larger meaning, when as a youngster I began to understand that not everyone had that same privilege or even a chance to eat regularly. In addition, I was given plenty of practice and appreciation of plants and the earth working in my parents’ garden. A sense of fairness was instilled in me by nature and by nurture – it led me to want to help balance out the inequity I saw around me. I went to work for what is now the Arizona Food Bank Network in 1987. Guided by mentors there – the Executive Director Ginny Hildebrand, and the Assistant Director, Penny Braun, I met others across the state and country who were so like-minded – understanding the prevalence of hunger, and understanding that hunger was a symptom of larger social imbalance. And understanding that providing food, extending that resource was a way to engage, connect, learn, share, create change and opportunity to address that imbalance. I am an appreciator, facilitator, supporter, empath, problem solver, and good networker! I feel hugely grateful for the chance to work with Sun Produce Co-op, which as basically a food hub and distributor, connects the dots between producers and eaters, and lifts up the critical role of local farms in the overall health of the community.

Any advice for managing a team?

Since Sun Produce Co-op is a mission-driven organization, we are grateful to have board members, volunteers and staff that go above and beyond. We have hired people who care, have heart and want that passion part of themselves to be rewarded, in addition to getting the paycheck. The chance to make sure folks don’t burn out / be asked to give too much, in an organization that is growing rapidly, without much money yet to invest in staff is a constant challenge. The Co-op runs on people power – and yet it can be an all-day, all-night job to get the work done. So we are working on adding staff and welcome volunteers as well to bring fresh eyes to the programs. We have a small benefits program and provide a small annual bonus, and constant truthful positive affirmation.

As a manager interacting with 5 employees, a 10-member board of directors and several volunteers weekly if not daily, I am constantly problem-solving. I have learned to channel my own frustrations into a pattern – to listen to what are folks really telling me, and what the root of the problem is that needs to be solved: what is my goal during and at the end of the conversation. Then the interaction becomes a mutual conversation, where mutual positive problem-solving can occur, resulting in mutually-agreeable, doable response, action and results.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Basically, lasting (staying in business) has helped build our reputation. Offering a high quality beautiful product – fresh, healthy local produce, eggs, honey, flowers, herbs, grains, breads and meat, raised by amazingly resilient, passionate, hard-working, creative farmers – and sold to equally talented, passionate, hard-working, creative business owners, community-based foundations, schools, hospitals, grocery stores, famers markets and other local food distributors, is helping the word get around. The Co-op has integrity, first and foremost – it does what it says it will. Staff communicates clearly with our farm network and our customers. We show up and we pay our bills. We have fun, work incredibly hard, building a business from bubble gum, paper clips and a strong vision that we don’t lose sight of. And we care. And we are filling a niche, creating a supply of and demand for local food, that is needed, nobody else is doing.

Contact Info:

• Website: sunproducecoop.org
• Instagram: @sunproducecoop
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sunproducecoop/

Image Credits
Sun Produce Cooperative