In late July, the staff at Volume One, the Chippewa Valley’s culture and entertainment publication headquartered in Eau Claire, reached out to us via email to ask if we’d be interested in filming an interview about the pandemic’s effect on our co-op as part of a documentary they were making, and we enthusiastically accepted. On the day of the shoot, Rebecca Mennecke (Writer), Joel Pearish (Director of Photography), and Kyle Lehman (Shooting Assistant) arrived at our store at 6:00am and spent about four hours with two of our team members, Marketing Manager Kendall Williams and Outreach & Education Coordinator Becca Schoenborn.

During their socially distanced time together, they discussed everything from the initial changes our store quickly made to operations at the beginning of the pandemic and the meat shortage that occurred at other grocers this spring to the launch of our store’s new eCommerce website this summer—an unexpected project that was fast-tracked due to the pandemic.

The finished short film titled “Outbroken,” which clocks in just under nine minutes long, was released in late October, and it tells the story of how each part of the local food system was dramatically affected in the early days of the pandemic, including local farms, restaurants, co-ops like ours, and more. To view the film and/or read the article in full, click play below or visit Volume One’s website.

This article was originally published in the January/February 2021 issue of our bi-monthly newsletter, The Morsel. If you’d like to read more stories like this one and stay up to date on the latest co-op news and events, pick up a print copy in-store on your next grocery run or find more news on our website here.