Denver Fair Food wastes no time in making the pivot…

Ask not for whom the bell tolls in Denver, King Soopers (aka Kroger), it tolls for you!

All is decidedly not quiet on the western front in the fight for food justice!

Just days after last week’s big announcement that the CIW had reached a Fair Food agreement with Chipotle, the incredible crew at Denver Fair Food is back in the street, taking its message to local grocery giant King Soopers (one of two brands in the Rocky Mountain region owned by Kroger, the other being City Market).

From the examiner.com (“Chipotle signs Fair Food Agreement, is Kroger next?“, 10/9/12):

“Protests for Chipotle’s Cultivate festival at City Park in Denver were cancelled due to Chipotle’s recent alliance with the CIW. Instead, on Saturday October 7, 2012, The CIW and protesters gathered outside of the King Soopers on 9th and Corona to ask Kroger (King Soopers parent company) to follow Chipotle and become the 12th corporation along with McDonald’s, Burger King, and Whole Foods to sign the Fair Food Agreement. Oscar Otzoy and Gerardo Reyes from the CIW along with members from the Student Farmworker Alliance, Denver Fair Food, and Reverend Mary from Columbine Unitarian Universalist Church reported that they delivered a letter to the manager of King Soopers asking them to join the FFP.”

Robert McGoey, a longtime stalwart of the Campaign for Fair Food in Denver, spoke about the significance of the agreement with Chipotle and the next chapter in the campaign for Denver Fair Food:

“(The Chipotle agreement) is a reminder that grassroots organizing between conscientious consumers and farmworkers has the power to shape our food system for the better. We… can take an active role in creating the world we want to see.

Now it is time for the country’s massive supermarket chains to join the Fair Food Program. Here in Denver we’ll be calling on Kroger, the nation’s largest supermarket chain and owner of the local King Soopers brand, to join.” read more

If what’s past is indeed prologue, the time has come for King Soopers to stop stalling and join the Fair Food Program! There will undoubtedly be much more to come from Denver Fair Food, so we, for one, will be keeping an eye turned to the west in the weeks and months ahead.

And with that we will give the final word of this update to the fine people of Denver, Colorado, graphic style: