Staff Profile:
Karisa Centanni

by Deborah Trupin

In early 2006 Honest Weight’s Collective Management Team and Board of Directors created a job called “education coordinator” and began a search to fill the job. They found that person right in Honest Weight — Karisa Centanni. Karisa had been working for about two years in the grocery department. She’d learned a lot about how the Co-op works and was already involved with food and farming issues. These facts, combined with her enthusiasm and outgoing personality, made her the right person for the job. The job is the right one for Karisa, too— one of the first things she said in our interview was that it’s her “dream job.”

So, what does the education coordinator at Honest Weight Food Co-op do? As Karisa explained it, she is responsible for in-store education about the products that Honest Weight sells, about where and how those products are grown or made, and about how Honest Weight members and shoppers can support locally made products. Outreach coordinator Jessica Allen is responsible for doing this sort of education, and generally informing people about Honest Weight, at events outside of the store, such as farmers’ markets and health fairs. Karisa said that she and Jessica make a good team, complementing and amplifying one another’s work. Karisa also works with the Nutrition committee.

Karisa plans and coordinates the food “demos” in the Co-op — those tasty samples offered to shoppers. There are currently about six or seven demos a week. Karisa would like to increase them to two a day. She highlights seasonal foods and whole foods in the demos, and is developing recipes for them. Shoppers are offered a recipe card with their samples so they can learn how to prepare these foods. Karisa also wants to get the recipes onto the Honest Weight website. She is seeking member workers for the demos, both to prepare and serve the samples. Contact Karisa if this member- worker job would suit you (karisa@hwfc.com).

Increasing the amount of information available at Honest Weight about foods and their production is is another part of Karisa’s work. She is developing an information section, now located on the shelves just outside the entrance to the café. This section features books and DVDs, many of which are sold at cost, on food and food production issues and politics. It includes the documentary about Honest Weight, Honest Weight Food Co-op: A Really Great Place to Shop! and The Future of Food, about current food production practices.

The special section will also include nutritional information, and will be the place in the store to learn about events and how to get involved in these issues. Karisa is also working to place more signage and nutritional information throughout the store. To do this she plans to update all of the Honest Weight brochures, and wants to work with other HWFC staff members so that everyone is even more informed about contemporary nutrition issues and local food sources.

As part of her campaign to increase information about food and food producers, Karisa is working with two professional photographers who are making images of local farmers and producers. She plans to use these images in signs and profiles.

One aspect of her work that particularly excites Karisa is working with other organizations. She is Honest Weight’s representative to the Capital District Community Food Coalition, which also includes representatives from area food banks, the Regional Farm and Food Project, and Youth Organics (led by Honest Weight’s own Jess Oppenheimer). The Coalition works to find ways to deal with emergency food needs, while also supporting farmers and the land. Karisa also works directly with the Regional Farm and Food Project and with the 100-Mile-Food-Challenge.

One of Karisa’s goals for Honest Weight is to have the Co-op become a true leader in connecting consumers with local foods and resources, and supporting all other local business-neighbors. In her vision, HWFC would lead the larger community in a Capital District “Local First” network that eventually evolves into a local, sustainable business network affiliated with BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies). (See www.livingeconomies.org for more information on BALLEs.) This goal is connected to what she sees as a major challenge for Honest Weight, and indeed for all food distributors: “the changing environment’s effects on food production and distribution.”

Karisa joined Honest Weight in April 2004 when her sister, assistant front end manager Katie Centanni, gave her a share as her birthday present. The Centanni sisters are from Cropseyville, just east of Troy, where Karisa still lives. She graduated from SUNY Buffalo with a BFA, with a concentration in Photography, a BA in English and a minor in Russian. She said that “photography has been a long-time passion,” her “medium of choice for communicating, expressing and connecting [her] observations and thoughts with others.” While working at Honest Weight she is continuing her photographic work, and is also working on a documentary film about land-use policy in the Town of Brunswick — a project that unites all her interests.

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