Food Cooperatives

Food cooperatives have existed in the United States since the mid-nineteenth century. The vast majority of food co-ops in existence in the mid 1990s were founded in the 1970s and 1980s by consumers who wanted high quality natural foods at reasonable prices, but could not find it in traditional stores. These cooperatives are organized around the six Rochdale principles: open membership, democratic control, limited return on equity, net surplus belongs to the user-owners, continuous education, and cooperation among cooperatives. Beyond these principles, the organization of a food co-op may vary greatly. Some operate stores open to the public offering items identical to for-profit grocery stores, while others sell exclusively organically produced products to members only. Food co-ops are generally broken into two groups, buying clubs, or preorders; and retail stores. A buying club is a group of individuals and families who pool their purchases to buy in bulk. Buying clubs are often organized within other organizations, such as churches, day care or school groups, or neighborhoods. Members of a buying club order food in advance of delivery, consolidate member orders into a group order, and, upon delivery, break down the bulk purchases into individual member orders. Beginning in the late 1980s, buying clubs have increasingly used personal computers to consolidate their orders and produce invoices for individual members. This has decreased time requirements while increasing the integrity of the billing and ordering systems. Buying clubs typically have no inventory and few assets. All work is generally done on a volunteer bases, and sales are to members only. There is little equity capital required for this type of co-op.