Mariposa, the cooperative grocery store at 49th and Baltimore, has implemented two initiatives aimed at making a positive contribution to the neighborhood: On September 20, it announced a 10 percent discount program for qualifying low-income shoppers, and back in August it raised its minimum salary from $10.75 to $13 per hour.

The 10 percent discount emerged from a sense among Mariposa’s leadership that many of the store’s products aren’t accessible to all its neighbors. Hillary Wickline, Mariposa’s marketing coordinator, said the organization knows that even with government assistance, healthy food can be out of reach.

“We just want to make sure that we’re creating a welcoming space within this environment and not serving just a group of people with a steady income of, like, $50,000 a year or something like that,” Wickline said. 

The discount program applies to people in the WIC, SNAP, SSI, TANF, and Medicaid programs. Since this is the initiative’s first year, Mariposa is limiting the number of participants, though Wickline wouldn’t say what the maximum number was. For now, the co-op is accepting applications on a rolling basis, and about 20 people have applied already. To get the discount, you have to be a co-op member, though you can apply for the discount and join the co-op simultaneously. Subsidized membership is available to potential members with low incomes.

As for the new minimum salary, a Mariposa press release described it as a way to stand up for workers’ rights. Wickline said it was the highest minimum wage among Philadelphia grocery stores.

The co-op can make these socially conscious decisions partly because, back in June, it eliminated the flat 5 percent discount that all members received. Mariposa’s website attributes that change to the “financial strain” the discount put on the co-op. Under the new system, members receive dividends at the end of every year based on how much the co-op profited. Wickline said this arrangement has given the co-op more control over its finances. That helps explain why the low-income discount program and pay raise happened now, rather than earlier.

“We’ve been wanting to do these things for so long, and it was just a matter of finding the means to do it,” Wickline said.

You can apply for the new discount program here, and apply for a to work at Mariposa here.

– Eduard Saakashvili