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Starting a food co-op: Year 1

quaran.to

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Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#51

Post by Semaphor »

kthartic wrote: post #49
Semaphor wrote: post #46

I wish I could follow this, but the blog sadly lacks any (discoverable) RSS feeds. So qrush, any chance of that changing?

Not to be rude, but I don't think I've seen the term "RSS" in over ten years. I'm sure there's probably a niche group of people that still use them (maybe disproportionally higher amongst HN users), but I think OP can be forgiven for not including one.

Which is the advantage of technologically boring WordPress blogs: They get them by default without the author ever having to worry.

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#52

Post by nominusllc »

candiddevmike wrote: post #21
nominusllc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The co-op in Gays Mills, WI has been going strong since the 80's. All you need is a homogeneous community and some hippies. It's hard for one side to get one over on the other side when everyone shares the same corner store, pool, pub, and one-eyed barber. Love that place. You can smell the spices and herbs about 20ft from the door and it's just amazing. Like a spicy masala with a little skunk to it. I think co-ops w…

Kickapoo exchange? Driftless folks on HN?

Yep you know the one. It's on the other side of the street from the barber shop and knicknack place the barber's wife owns. the one with those welded metal sculptures of people made from forks and scrap iron and stuff. You from around the area?

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#53

Post by kjbreil »

qrush wrote: post #29
the-printer wrote: post #26

This may be an ignorant question. I’m sure I can search for it myself. But the commenters here sound well informed and experienced. Here it goes. I understand the process of establishing the food co-op, but how did they get the food ??

Most co-ops pair with local distributors and national ones (the most prominent being National Co-op Grocers - https://ncg.coop ) to actually get the food, but tons of steps to do before we are ready for this!

Just to clarify NCG is not a distributor but an overarching organization which helps Grocery Co-ops nationwide to run their business.

A generally used distributer would be UNFI along with using local distributers.

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#54

Post by weeblewobble »

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?

In Seattle we have PCC, which is at least successful enough to have a bunch of different locations since my childhood. https://www.pccmarkets.com/about/

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#55

Post by kjbreil »

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?

Seattle area has the nations largest and oldest grocery co-op - https://www.pccmarkets.com. 16 stores and generally doing well. The answer to how to keep it going is to run it like a grocery chain with experienced leaders and good board governance. In my experience a lot of the smaller coops I've seen have a problem separating the ideology from the need to run a business, grocery is notoriously low margin so a little waste is all that is needed to sink the buisness. Check https://www.ncg.coop/find-co-op to find a co-op near you.

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#56

Post by candiddevmike »

nominusllc wrote: post #52
candiddevmike wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kickapoo exchange? Driftless folks on HN?

Yep you know the one. It's on the other side of the street from the barber shop and knicknack place the barber's wife owns. the one with those welded metal sculptures of people made from forks and scrap iron and stuff. You from around the area?

La crosse area, love going down to viroqua during this time of year though.

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#57

Post by WaitWaitWha »

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 large chain grocery store.

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#58

Post by carride »

carride wrote: post #42
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…

Here are more details are the year before harvest shutdown. Summarized to say that all the unique organic and varieties of healthy food they were once known for, can now be found at most other grocery stores. https://archive.ph/NEc4o

This could have been pre-pandemic thinking in 2018

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#59

Post by hinkley »

dylan604 wrote: post #3

As a kid, my family was part of a co-op. I grew up in the boonies, and there was one local grocery store that had horrible selection. The larger chains required long drives to get to, but even then they did not have the produce selections that is the norm now. Instead, each weekend a member of the co-op would visit the farmer's market in the Big City. We were no where near the size of the co-op in the TFA, but it mad…

Ace hardware is technically a co-op, but that would be a surviving one more than one for the 21st century. REI is also a co-op but I couldn’t explain how to save my life.

However, Organic Valley definitely is a co-op, and while they started in 1988 they didn’t seem to get serious traction until around 2000, and now they’re everywhere on the west coast, which is not bad for a Midwest company.

Re: Starting a food co-op: Year 1

#60

Post by tomcam »

nominusllc wrote: post #8
jpm_sd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The co-op in Gays Mills, WI has been going strong since the 80's. All you need is a homogeneous community and some hippies. It's hard for one side to get one over on the other side when everyone shares the same corner store, pool, pub, and one-eyed barber. Love that place. You can smell the spices and herbs about 20ft from the door and it's just amazing. Like a spicy masala with a little skunk to it. I think co-ops w…

That was super informative except for the term “one-eyed barber”
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