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Starting a food co-op: Year 1

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Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#131

Post by wonderwonder »

sure_about_that wrote: post #127
wonderwonder wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course its me that's offended by it, I don't think I was hiding it. With that said, I'm jewish, we've kind of had our own rough go of it. Good part of my family died in the holocaust and the Russian Pogroms. I had stones thrown at me as a child on 2 occasions because I was Jewish. In elementary school I had to sit outside in the open hallway rain or shine while the christian kids prayed (I'm not from America origi…

My kids are also Jewish, from my wife’s side. It is interesting to hear the comments of people when they have no idea. Voting for split representation is a perfectly reasonable approach. I personally think DeSantis is pro-power, not pro-freedom. His stunt with asylum-seeking migrants is a great example. Also the fact that Florida doesn’t have things like legal weed, legal sports betting, legal abortion, and more.

I for the most part agree with all your points on Desantis. Medical marijuana in Florida is a joke, I'm pro legalization. Not a fan of gambling personally but to each their own. On a personal level I think he's a Jerk. So with all that said as someone in my 40s that has only voted Democrat before, the fact that I am voting for Desantis shows how concerned I am with the social engineering going on in the country.

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#132

Post by lambertsimnel »

silexia wrote: post #85

Most areas don't have co-ops because not many people are willing to do a ton of work and not get any benefits from it. This is why capitalism works so well... Entrepreneurs take a ton of risk and do a ton of work and sometimes get windfall profits from it.

The big food retail coops in the UK are in most respects supermarkets like any other. The people doing the work get paid, and they're as capitalist as any other business that doesn't list equities on a stock market.

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#133

Post by lambertsimnel »

bombcar wrote: post #100
artec wrote: post #75

How do you all keep it truly democratic with (eventually) 1000+ owners? Who decides on major decisions like, where it will be built, what funding sources you'll accept, who will do what work etc.

You can’t keep it “truly democratic” - the owners are basically there to replace the management if they go insane. And coops have been known to explode - usually when they become untenable for the reasons that drove the grocery stores away.

> You can’t keep it “truly democratic” - the owners are basically there to replace the management if they go insane.

In a sense, that's true of other kinds of business, which also allow their owners to vote. The difference is that in a coop it's one person one vote, and nobody can be an owner without being a stakeholder of another kind (such as an employee or a customer), whereas in a conventional business there's no reason owners must intersect with other kinds of stakeholders (though there might still be some overlap), and votes don't necessarily have equal value.

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#134

Post by neilv »

jt2190 wrote: post #94
neilv wrote: post #2

This seems to be in the Boston, Mass., area. Some related local background is that there was the Harvest Co-op chain until a few years ago: https://www.boston.com/food/food/2018/10/04/harvest-co-op-ma... There's also the Market Basket for-profit regional chain, where employees and customers successfully stood up against some family business maneuvers to force out the head, and it's once again generally well-regarded…

I mean… Stop and Shop is literally two blocks from where Russo’s was [1] so I’m not sure what relevance Harvest or Market Basket bring to this conversation. (Edit: I’m not trying to be dismissive, but it’s not really clear why these other stores are relevant. Are you suggesting that perhaps labor is being treated better than at the big chains?) Russo’s was definitely a high-end, premium prices place: Fancy imported c…

I thought someone who's interested in new co-ops in this area would be interested in the history of a prior co-op that operated in this area.

Also, one of the things that the co-op seemed to value was treating workers well, which overlaps with one of my favorite recent stories of people banding together (a little like a co-op), to succeed. And that store is known for better prices than the others, making it more accessible while a certain premium store has been gobbling up other ones, so there's another social justice angle that might be of interest.

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#135

Post by laurencerowe »

jpm_sd wrote: post #6
neilv wrote: post #2

This seems to be in the Boston, Mass., area. Some related local background is that there was the Harvest Co-op chain until a few years ago: https://www.boston.com/food/food/2018/10/04/harvest-co-op-ma... There's also the Market Basket for-profit regional chain, where employees and customers successfully stood up against some family business maneuvers to force out the head, and it's once again generally well-regarded…

Given that Harvest shut down "after years of financial instability", what's the strategy for this new co-op to survive? If you can't run a successful co-op in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where can you?

> If you can't run a successful co-op in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where can you?

In the UK we have two large grocery co-op chains. Waitrose is a worker owned co-op filling the Whole Foods niche while The Co-op is a consumer owned co-op with a mix of smaller grocery stores and medium sized supermarkets. In the US I think REI is the largest retail co-op, though we have at least one small food co-op in SF.

Once they reach a certain size they’re not all that different from regular public companies.

They’re perhaps more common in financial services with credit unions and mutual funds like Vanguard having customer owned structures. The U.K. used to have building societies (equivalent to US credit unions) but almost all turned into banks giving their members shares in the 80s and 90s.

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#136

Post by miclill »

Aachen wrote: post #68
miclill wrote: post #65

Cool, I've been a member of a Coop for about 10 years now. Website of our Coop (in German): https://foodcoop-karlsruhe.de

I had never heard of this concept before seeing this article. Great to hear it's in Germany also! Would you know if there is a list of co-ops in Germany somewhere, to see if there is one closer to me than Karlsruhe?

Yes, look here:

https://foodcoopedia.de.fcoop.org/wiki/Hauptseite

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#137

Post by Aachen »

miclill wrote: post #136
Aachen wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had never heard of this concept before seeing this article. Great to hear it's in Germany also! Would you know if there is a list of co-ops in Germany somewhere, to see if there is one closer to me than Karlsruhe?

Yes, look here: https://foodcoopedia.de.fcoop.org/wiki/Hauptseite

Super, dankeschön!

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#138

Post by bmj »

bombcar wrote: post #66
WaitWaitWha wrote: post #57

I read the article, but it is not clear what kind of co-op they want to create. Is it a brick & mortar, delivery? Is it making deals with local farmers & homesteads, or buying from large distributors at discount? I have participated in co-ops that were delivery only, local only. It was not always the cheapest, but for planning meals it worked out. The quality was almost always better if I just walked down to the larg…

So I've seen a couple of different kinds: 1. The one they're working on results in a "grocery store" when done - it's coop run and handles working with distributors, etc. It often ends up "feeling" like a Whole Foods or similar, as the "non-direct" farm products end up sourced from similar distributors. 2. The "farmer's market" type - where you end up with basically a continual farmer's market - this one can grow int…

The coop in my city (I've been a member for over 30 years) does a very good job of bridging your first two descriptions. It is a full service grocery store, but there is an emphasis on local producers. Not all of the produce or meat is local, but much of it is, and the staff always highlights the number of local producers available on the shelves. The coop also has the largest bulk food section in the area (it puts the bulk section at Whole Foods to shame).

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#139

Post by chiefalchemist »

bombcar wrote: post #98
chiefalchemist wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only reason to go there is if we happen to be in the area and/or if there's something we want that we know they only sell there, but that's no different than the 3 big-chain stores in our town. Actually, there is a difference. The dollars spent at a co-op are far more likely to stay in the local community. On the hand, give it to the big chain, and it's far more like to make it back to HQ (and the shareholders)…

> The dollars spent at a co-op are far more likely to stay in the local community That may not be the case anymore if the coop sources everything from the same sources Whole Foods does.

Yes and no. With a chain you're certain some % is going back to HQ. That's not the case with a co-op. So even if the goods are sourced outside your area - and chances are some are going to have to be in this era - the co-op still wins in terms of money "retention".

If the co-op banks with a local credit union, that's another plus. Chains likely aren't doing that either.

Again, check out the book. He had great insights and great ideas.

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#140

Post by jeegsy »

wonderwonder wrote: post #103

I don't get it. It said nothing about actually providing food. At what point do people grow or get produce? Also why does race have to be brought into everything? Why have the 8th principal? Looking at your board members all of you are white. All of your support staff is white. Why cant it be just a group of not racist people building a co-op, where all are welcome? Why does everything have to push race? Its exhausti…

DEI statements/policy are basically a 'requirement' for organizations these days. Slap on the by now boilerplate policies, do a few seminars (pay speakers in the circuit) and you should be able to more easily do business with other orgs who presumably as part of the requirement above are only allowed to do business with DEI-compliant orgs. A big old virtue signaling circle jerk and nothing important ever really changes.
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