Workers at Lori’s Natural Foods wrote this announcement of their intentions to the owners:

We, the workers of Lori’s Natural Foods Center ,write to you to inform you we are forming a union. We believe that doing so is the best way to make Lori’s the best place it can be for working and shopping, and are hopeful our union will bring a collaborative and productive relationship with management. We all love working at the store, and are driven by a desire to keep and preserve the things we love, while also being able to be more organized in communicating what we believe should be improved, for example: the ability to take two consecutive days off. Our hope is you will see us as we are: an organization which can help keep the store profitable along with providing helpful feedback on how things are in each of our departments. We ask that you respect our right to organize and agree to a fair election, free from fear or intimidation. We have attached a set of principles to this letter that we hope you will sign to ensure this process is not against anyone, but instead is a collaborative process we can all participate in and make our voices heard. Due to the government shutdown, we are unable to file for an election with the NLRB, and would appreciate this not impacting our ability to exercise our right to vote as we enter this process. We would therefore request for you to agree to have an election quickly with an agreed upon third party.

In solidarity, Lori’s Workers United 77 89

In recent years there has been a boom for unionizing efforts at local natural food stores. In July of 2025, Abuandance Food Co-op, was unionized. Abundance was the third grocery co-op in Upstate New York to form a union, following recent successful campaigns at Lexington Co-op in Buffalo and GreenStar in Ithaca. (Source: Foodtank)