The Co-op Food Stores of New Hampshire and Vermont

Question of the Week for September 5: Are you willing to pay the extra cost for meat products from local animals ethically raised and humanely slaughtered?

A Sampling of member Answers

• As vegetarians we must insist that there is no way that you can either ethically raise and/or slaughter animals. You have presented us with an oxymoron.

• I am unwilling to pay extra cost for local meat products. Find a way to provide these products at competitive cost. i.e. less transportation expense.

• Yes but since we do have to live within a budget, we’d probably eat less meat in order to afford locally produced products. Probably a good thing for our health anyway!

• There are but two of us and we eat very little meat, but yes (or perhaps “so therefore”), I would be willing to pay a bit more (say 10 or 15%) for meat products from local animals ethically raised and humanely slaughtered.

• Yes, please! Frustrating that local, well-raised meat is relatively hard to come by even at the Co-op.

• I am up to a point. If all the meat is $9 or $10 a pound, I can’t afford that. Perhaps if more local meat is being raised the price will become cheaper.

• Yes, I’m willing to pay extra for meat products from locally animals ethically raised and humanely slaughtered, if in fact that is the case. I’d like some assurance that this is truly so, and not just a marketing gimmick. I’ve read that some suppliers make this claim but do not actually do so.

• Generally, yes. Of course, it depends on how much “extra cost”. If the cost was high for my budget, I would plan to eat more vegetarian meals, buying the ethically raised/humanely slaughtered for our fewer meat dishes. As a socially concious organization, how can the option of ethically raised/humanely slaughtered animals not be offered????