I wonder what that looks like? Which members of the community?
Thoughts?
Co-op Pizzaria
Berkeley had one. Long lines. Ridiculous.
Anyone are to bet how long it lasts? How about a right-wing resolution against it just to push buttons?
“.... our profits go back into our community .... and they’re not siphoned off .... “
—
Not yet but if I were a betting man, ....
If anyone is a member of a credit union, they should understand this model.
A credit union is the same as a bank except the “customers” are called “members”. Your minimum deposit into the credit union is your ownership share.
My guess is they will require “members” to live in a specific geographic area and agree to some type of membership agreement and maybe pay an annual membership fee (like Costco or Sams).
They will likely have an elected board of directors who will hire and fire senior management. The senior management will be responsible for the hiring of staff and of day to day operations of the organization.
> “A food co-op is a grocery store owned and democratically run by members of the community.” <
One thing is for sure. The more starry-eyed liberals who are involved, the greater the chances are that the co-op will fail.
The town I grew up in had a grocery store co-op some ex-hippies set up around 1975. You paid a yearly fee ($20 or so) and got a 5% discount on everything. It was some bulk goods, organic (before that was popular) and niche stuff, but good prices overall.
50 years later it’s still there, same membership concept but transformed into more of a Whole Foods Yuppy market.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/vDPKpxGLCXpDB8TE9
Whenever I’m back in town I stop in. Great cheese selection at better than fair prices.
We have a couple non-profit co-op grocery stores in our area. Anyone can shop there but ownership shares (ie. membership) is relatively cheap - I believe around $20/year which gets you preferred pricing and discounts, ability to vote on the board of directors, etc...
One sees a lot of nose-rings and pink hair in the store, and it carries a lot more speciality items, organic foods, tofu, has a large “natural health” section, specializes in local farm produce, etc...
I don’t go there often, but its a nice and clean place.
I encourage all self-supporting co-ops. I’m used to seeing them in our local agriculture sector, but any time people come together with their own money and time to do their own thing, I believe that is a benefit to civil society.
Most of the food coops in the U.S. are local. But in the UK there are several that have dozens or even hundreds of stores each.
Because Socialist community members know how to run a capital intensive, low margin business like a grocery store much better than a national chain. People have this mistaken notion that they know as much about running a business as a national business that has operated for years. They don't. Its why restaurants go under as much as they do. Everyone thinks they know how to run one but they don't. This is going to flop.
We had one in a city we lived in. It was worth it to get things on sale and when we couldn’t easily find them, elsewhere.
The daily from scratch soups and the frozen packages of Alaskan sockeye salmon meat scraps were always amazingly good. We found the best coffees we’d never known, there, and drink them to this day, but now buy direct over the Internet.
We took a class or two they offered on cooking or prepping meals from scratch.
We even bought a share of the co-op, then sold it for the same price, as we left. The share let us get additional sales opportunities a couple times a year.
We were, and still are, “Crunchy Cons.” We were among a lot of liberals, but they are all nice and sedate in the Co-op.
Whole Foods and Sprouts are substitutes for a co-op, for products. The co-op probably had more bulk dispensers of various items, though.
Just like the Soviet Union.
“Local, local, local. “ and they call Trumps nationalism racist. Go figure.
These food coops are not a new thing and there was one operating in Sioux Falls, SD decades ago. It sold the usual assortment of tofu, vegan foods and locally sourced produce and yes the ambiance was laced with the scent of patchouli. We used to call it the hippy dippy grocery. Whole Foods and to an extent Trader Joe’s are just classier versions of the coops.
It sounds like a Costco type business model, in which people pay a membership fee.
As long as they at least break even financially, it sounds like a good business model.
https://resources.uwcc.wisc.edu/History_of_Cooperatives.pdf
just being a food coop does not guarantee success. so what is the secret?
Just like in a sole proprietorship or corporation it is LEADERSHIP and COMMITMENT. Commitment requires some skin in the game. There is excitement in the early stages and then problems start.
More power to them.
Oh, and sometimes it is luck that is more important than mgt.
https://entrepreneurshq.com/small-business-statistics/
Before diving into the details, here’s a snapshot of the small business landscape according to the latest statistics:
According to the SBA, 33.2 million small businesses account for 99.9% of all U.S. businesses (SBA, 2024).
They create 1.5 million jobs in the US annually – 64% of new jobs (SBA, 2024).
Nearly half of U.S. employees (46.4%) work for small employer businesses.
85.8% are solopreneurs, and 55% operate from home (Tailor Brands, 2024).
Self-employed owners earn $49,489; small businesses with employees with around one to four people make $387,000 per year (SBA, 2024).
Top reasons to start a business: Be their own boss (60%), leave corporate jobs (47%), follow a passion (31%) (Guidant Financial, 2024).
80% of small business administration owners are optimistic about the future (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2024).
Is this what the socialist mayor candidate in NewYork wants to do?
But can a govt run store work like these privately owned co-ops? That’s a key issue.
Perhaps the future of groceries
In our shoplifting is allowed world
We had one in Greensboro NC. Hippie grocery