Equal Exchange = Small Farmers, Big Change

September 8, 2015 by Jenn

Guest post from Hope Williams at Equal Exchange

Producer trip India, 2012 (Scott Patterson)

Equal Exchange was founded over 30 years ago with the purpose of redefining the way we approach trade. Our goal was to use trade to support and empower small farmers and democratically run coops around the world. We envisioned long lasting and tangible social change through honest and truly fair partnerships.

Today we still fight everyday against the ever changing market, social and climatic events that put at risk our farmer’s livelihoods. We continue this fight by not only paying the best price for our products to our farmers but also providing on-the-ground support to ensure their crops quality, longevity, durability, and productivity. We work with our farmers to organize and claim more control over the volatile market and demand a fair price for their products. We do all of this in the name of authentic fair trade.

At Equal Exchange we roast our coffee fresh locally to the highest standards. Craft chocolate with pure

The Equal Exchange rainbow of staff members

simple ingredients: all fair trade and organic cocoa, sugar, and vanilla. We work on developing non-plantation models of fair trade tea using alternative trade models. To put it simply: we are proud of all of our products. By purchasing an EE product you are making a direct and noticeable impact globally. We can trace every purchase you make to the farmers who provided the product. Our supply chain is always transparent, always Fair Trade and always organic. We truly believe that small farmers create the biggest change.

Teaming up with Portland Pedal Power was an obvious choice. Jenn and her PPP team are a group of outstanding innovators, hard workers, and strict purveyor of the best local products you can find. PPP’s work strengthening local brands and transforming the Portland delivery system is necessary and exciting. PPP is a great resource to help Equal Exchange expand our work within the Portland market. With the help of PPP, Equal Exchange is eager to reach more local businesses and increase market impact for our farmers

Since Equal Exchange believes in holding ourselves to the same standards as our farmer partners, we organized ourselves into a worker-owned cooperative. Each worker-owner retains one share and one vote. We set very strict pay ratios for ourselves in order to maintain a fair and equal workplace. Additionally, Equal Exchange maintains a no-sell out clause in our bylaws that prevents the owners from ever making a profit by selling of the company. This is done to maintain accountability and responsibility for the company’s choices and actions. We work not for profit or personal gain but for the advancement of our farmers and social justice around the world.

For more information visit: equalexchange.coop or our blog: smallfarmersbigchange.coop

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Happy New Year! Plan your Resolutions Now!

January 1, 2015 by Jon Elias

With the New Year comes New Year’s Resolutions which usually means buying some new gym clothes, setting up a budget, and throwing away sugary foods.

One that always seems to evade our grasp is the resolution to eat right. We always start off the year with the best intentions, like buying more kale and throwing out the peanut butter cookies.

But by January 15th, we seem to have conveniently forgotten the greenery in the fridge and have started foraging for junk food in the pantry.

Fear not, citizen! There’s a new way to keep yourself loyal to your best intentions. Whole Foods makes it easy to follow through with your resolutions, offering healthy alternatives through their optimized online menu. Whole Foods is filled to the brim with healthy alternatives that will help you stay healthy, without forcing yourself to give up flavors you love.

Whether you’re a vegetarian, a carnivore, a vegan, an organic foods enthusiast, or just someone who wants to try something new this week, Whole Foods can cater to your every need. Check out their menu, and you will find anything from appetizers to allegro coffee to whole meals and entrees laid out for your ease of use. Because at the end of the day, you can do it all yourself. But you don’t have to.

Best of all, we can drop it off at your doorstep, meaning you have more time to use those gym clothes and jump on the cycle machine.

Check out the Whole Foods Online Menu to start planning your resolutions!

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Lunchtime Blues? Jazz It Up With Some Flavor!

November 4, 2014 by Jon Elias

Lunchtime sometimes gets the short end of the stick when compared to our daily meals. Breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day, Dinner usually takes a lot of preparation, but lunch? It can range from whatever happens to be in the pantry to that bag of chips you got from the vending machine.

Don’t neglect lunch! Think of it as your recharge for the second half of the day. Fail to get enough energy, and you might find yourself nodding off, becoming forgetful, or getting cranky. You have to get that energy to finish off the day!

Check out some of the things you can find on our Lunch Menu and spice up your afternoon meal:

BBQ Fusion is a food cart serving your BBQ favorites. This labor intensive, no short cut method of cooking low and slow yields moist and tender meats. Experience succulent meats made with homemade spice seasonings, marinades, and sauces.

East India Co. Grill & Bar seeks to redefine the perception of Indian food, offering the classic dishes with a contemporary flair. You can grab one of their Makhani dishes, an aromatic butter based tomato cream sauce seasoned with spices & herbs.

Garden Bar offers large, generous bowls of crisp, locally sourced veggies, seasonal fruit, satisfying grains and gorgeous local cheeses tossed with seriously flavorful dressings. You may even want to take a picture of your bowl before you dive in; these salads will make for some jealous friends.

Left Coast is an authentic Southern diner food cart in downtown Portland that specializes in Low Country cuisine of the Carolinas. From Fried Chicken to Oyster Po-Boy, you will find all kinds of southern comfort food on the Left Coast. ** Edit: we no longer service Left Coast**

Nong’s Khao Man Gai is a legendary food cart serving up their specialty dish of Khao Man Gai. Nong was recently featured on Chopped, a program featured on The Food Network!

Savor Soup House is a food cart serving delicious, homemade soups and grilled cheese from seasonal, quality ingredients. Savor strives to make all of their soups gluten free, and all soups and stews are served with Grand Central Bread. ** Edit: we no longer service Savor Soup House**

This is just a taste of what awaits you on our Lunch Menu! Portland Pedal Power delivers for over 30 different locations between 11AM to 2PM. Check out what we can do to make your lunch exciting!

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Enjoy the best Eastern Cuisine from the Comfort of your Own Home

April 24, 2014 by Jon Elias

When you consider the bland, mundane food that was plaguing Europe during the dark ages, you can’t help but feel a twinge of remorse for the poor souls who didn’t know any better. It’s no wonder explorers traveled across half the world to find something more palatable.

Of course here in PDX, you don’t need to go on a lifelong expedition to find the best tastes of the world. Instead you can jump online, look at our wide variety of choices, and suddenly you’ve done what took Marco Polo over 20 years to do. Portland Pedal Power does the hard work, and you can stay at home in your footie pajamas. Imagine if Marco could see us now…

Check out a sample of what you can find on our dinner menu, and start planning what you’re going to enjoy tonight:

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Meet Alex, One of the People Behind the Pedals!

March 25, 2014 by Jon Elias

Portland Pedal Power is very lucky to have some of the best human resources in residence. Our riders are smart, friendly, and have legs of steel from riding far and wide across Portland. While you may get the chance to see us on the streets from time to time, how often do you get to sit down and get to know your delivery team?

With that in mind, I set out to find out a little bit about the people powering the pedals, to give you, our customers, some insight on who is delivering your vegetarian pizza, organic sushi, or hand made pie.

Meet Alex, a PPP cycling extraordinaire. Alex came up from San Pedro, California, and has lived in the Portland area for a little more than two years.

When he’s not running morning deliveries from Bowery Bagels, Delicious Donuts and Gluten Free Gem, Alex likes to ride his own Motiv bicycle around town. One of his early memories of being on a bike was riding solo next to a stucco wall. His shoelace got stuck on the gear, and Alex got to meet the wall a little bit quicker than he had planned. Maybe not the most graceful start to a life of cycling, but certainly a memorable one.

During his free time, Alex likes to do things that, in hindsight, weren’t good ideas (Lets be honest, who doesn’t?). When pressed for an example, I couldn’t get one out of him, so I moved on to an easier question. Alex’s favorite restaurant in Portland? Nong’s Khao Man Gai, which just happens to be on our order page.

Keeping with PPP tradition, I asked Alex what kind of animal he would be if he had the choice to change his species. To this, he responded “A Cormorant,” a species of bird known for its diving ability. After all, “If you have to downgrade, you might as well have superpowers.” That’s a good answer!

Here’s to you Alex! Thanks for doing what you do at Portland Pedal Power!

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Satisfy your Sweet Tooth with Treehouse Chocolate!

December 5, 2013 by Jon Elias

Portland Pedal Power is partnering with Treehouse Chocolate! As a chocolate fiend myself, I’m always looking for that unique take on the classic dessert, and this place obviously knows its way around cacao!

Founded by surfer, sailor and bean-to-bar chocolate maker Aaron Koch, Treehouse Chocolate focuses on bringing out the exceptional quality of the cacao through craft. Treehouse Chocolate imports cacao from organic farmer owned cooperatives, roasts in small batches, and melanges in a traditional stone grinder. Because good things are crafted slowly, it takes about three days to make a 50lb batch of chocolate. All of the chocolate is made locally by hand, from ethically sourced cacao.

Aaron has been inspired to do a lot of crazy things during his life. After spending his childhood in Singapore, he decided to cross the Pacific and find a place in Portland. His curiousity led him to sail a boat through pirate territory in the Celebes Sea, a boat that later got struck by lightning. But the greatest thing curiosity guided him to do was work on the cacao farms of Hawaii.

There, Aaron dug his hands into the dirt and discovered a lifelong passion. In the tiny treehouse he called home, an idea formed: a chocolate company that does justice to the craft and spirit of cacao farming. That uses only premium organic cacao, sustainably sourced direct from the farmers. Treehouse forgoes unhealthy substitutes in favor of simple, natural deliciousness.

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Another Visit to the Wellspring School

February 21, 2013 by Brook

Are you trying to get healthy? Are you a professional looking for some classes to build on your knowledge? Our friends at the Wellspring School for Healing Arts have a few classes they want you to know about.

First up is Inner Wisdom: Body-Centered Emotional Healing. Science and experience have shown that emotions affect our physical bodies. It might be the headache that springs up in response to stress or lump that arises in your throat when you’re choking back tears. In this experiential workshop, you will learn how to not only connect with where you are holding emotions in your body, but also how to listen to your body’s innate wisdom about how to permanently shift the pattern.

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Guest Blog: Living City & Handmade Gardens

January 24, 2013 by Brook

Garden 1 This is a guest blog written by Rachel Freifelder of Living City and Handmade Gardens. We connected with Rachel through Portland Society, a nonprofit business alliance of professional women who are passionate about bicycling in Portland.

It is mid-January and the weather has been truly wintry. The memories of the mild fall, the late frost-date, fade so quickly when freezing fog slicks the streets and fingertips burn with cold! The sunshine is, of course, a welcome tradeoff for the dip in temperatures. I linger in it this afternoon, admiring the thin, yellow light slanting over the brave, sturdy vegetables still thriving in the garden.

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Sugar Mama’s Cookin’ Just for you Baby!

March 20, 2012 by stacy

If there’s any one thing that Portland lacks an abundance of in the area of foods, it’s comfort food. It’s that nostalgic feel that you get when you sink your fork into a home cooked pie, or when you catch a whiff of fresh sausage and eggs cooking up in the kitchen in the morning. It’s that feel good smile you get when you take a sip of some fresh home made soup, or sink your teeth into something delicious and nutritious. According to Wikipedia, comfort foods can “…relieve negative psychological stress, pique positive emotions, or increase feelings of positivity.” Portland Pedal Power is working with the two ladies Portland has claimed as it’s surrogate mothers, Michelle and Zelda from Sugar Mamas’, bringing you smiles and comfort food delivery when you’re missing your mama!

Of all the vendors we’ve had the pleasure of interviewing, I don’t think we’ve met any two ladies sweeter than the ladies at Sugar Mamas’!

Sugar Mamas’ cooks up all natural organic, handmade, home cooked meals like “you used to wish your grandmother would make.” These two sweeties were kind enough to take a few minutes out of their busy (and I do mean BUSY) schedule to chat with PPP a little more about what makes Sugar Mamas’ so sweet! (more…)

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Artemis: Portland’s Premier Sustainable Catering Company Goes Car less!

January 31, 2012 by stacy

As true believers in the practice of sustainable business and lovers of truly quality food, we at Portland Pedal Power are honored to be teamed up with Portland’s premier sustainable catering company. Inspired and represented by the Greek goddess herself, Artemis Foods offers some of the most delicious, organic, and natural food this city has to offer and they have chosen PPP as their food delivery vessel. Working with local farmers and shopping the farmer’s markets, Artemis has the freshest, hormone-free, organically grown ingredients delivered right to their back door and a team of chefs sent by the gods themselves to prepare meals worthy of the dining table of Olympus.

A word from Artemis:

So, did I ever imagine the Greek goddess, Artemis riding around Portland on a bicycle? No, but growing up in San Francisco, many of my friends either went to college after high school or got jobs downtown as bike messengers and while I never worked as a messenger I definitely knew who the cool kids were. And I am proud to live in a city now where I am told, only in Portland will you hear of the Mayor getting rear ended by a cyclist while driving in his Prius! And, I can commute in to work via a 10 mile path connected by bridges, State Park, highways and a river trail that follows a major NW river full of salmon and skirts a beautiful wild life preserve. (more…)

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