Coop Directory Service: Find A Natural Food Coop Near You |
|||
|
 |
The Coop Directory Service is an
online source of information about natural food co-ops. If you know of anyone that is
interested in food coop information please feel free to pass on our addresses and phone
numbers: Coop Directory Service 1254 Etna Street, St. Paul, MN 55106 Phone and Fax: 651-774-9189 E-mail address: thegang@coopdirectory.org Please note that the Coop Directory Service is a web-based service. All the information we have about co-ops is on this site. Please don’t call or write us with further questions until you have thoroughly searched the site. |
|
 |
We wish to thank Seward Community Co-op for its financial support of this service. |
||
If you know about natural food co-ops (what they are,
|
|||
Coop Directory Service
Listing
|
|||
If you need to know more about what
|
|||
What Is A Coop? What Is A Buying Club? |
|||
| If you want to explore other things offered on this site, you may want to click on one of these links | |||
There
have been  Website last updated: October 27, 2006 05:09 AM |
|||
|
||
What Is A Coop?
In the loosest sense, a co-op is any voluntary organization composed of a group of individuals (or organizations) formed for their mutual (generally, financial) benefit. A familiar example is a group of roommates who rent an apartment together to save money.
These informal associations and the more formal ones discussed below all share a number of common features.
They all are democratic, volunteer associations.
They are formed for mutual financial benefit (to save money or to increase buying power); in short, they are businesses.
They have no owners other than their members.
They are non-profit organizations; what would be profit in other organizations is returned to the member/owners.
Coops are all around us - they are everywhere! They include:
Credit unions
Mutual insurance companies (Invented by Ben Franklin in 1752)
Housing co-ops
Rural electric power co-ops
Consumer goods co-ops (REI comes to mind)
Distribution coops (Ace Hardware)
Producer co-ops (Sunkist, Land’O Lakes)
For more information on the various types of co-ops in the US and around the world check out the National Cooperative Business Association and the International Cooperative Alliance sites.
The CDS is dedicated to promoting one form of consumer co-op, namely the natural food co-op. These natural food co-ops deal primarily with food products that are "natural" – those produced with a minimum of processing and with little or no additives or preservatives (much of this food is also organically grown).
There are three types of natural food coops that CDS deals with:
BUYING CLUBS - these are (generally) informal organizations of friends, members of church groups, etc. who buy food together from a food co-op warehouse.
COOP GROCERY STORES – much like a buying club except that they are (generally) formal co-op corporations often with thousands of member/owners. It must be emphasized that you do not have to be a member of the food co-op to shop in these stores.
COOP DISTRIBUTORS - These
supply their members/owners (including buying clubs and grocery stores) with food. Until
last year all of the distributors we list were, themselves, co-ops owned by their
member/customers. Due to unbearable market forces one of them folded and two others sold
out to a private firm – the remaining two have not as of this writing, succumbed.
With, as they say, a heavy heart we will provide links to these commercial warehouses as
long as they continue to support sales to co-op buying clubs.
Otherwise, each of these coops are non-profit organizations formed by people to provide
low cost healthy food primarily to members of their organization.
What Is A Buying Club?
The short answer is: a group of people who buy food together from a Coop Distributor.
The long answer is: to really know what a buying club is requires knowledge of how it operates.
Typically, they are composed of seven or more families, who share the chores of collecting money from the member families, placing the order with the distributor, helping unload the truck when it arrives at the drop-off site and dividing up the individual orders.
How Can I Find One Near Me?
Look for one listed on the Coop Directory. If you can’t find one near you, then contact your regional Coop Distributor and ask them if they can give you information about a buying club in your area. Sometimes they will take your name and pass it on to the local buying clubs who may elect to contact you.
Please appreciate that many buying clubs consider themselves private organizations that want to be careful about accepting new members.
Note many of the distributors allow you to link to a location on their site that will lead you to a buying club near you.
How To Start And Run A Buying Club
What resources are available to help me do this?
The basic rule is very simple --- contact the Coop Distributor in your area and follow their advice.
Note that the number of buying clubs in the US is probably over twenty times the number of food co-op storefronts. These buying clubs are a very important source of business for the Coop Distributor. Most have customer service representatives that are dedicated to servicing the needs of buying clubs. You may want to follow their procedures for locating and perhaps joining an existing buying club.
In fact, if you want to start your own buying club it is highly recommended that you join an existing club temporarily to “learn the ropes.”
Some other resources on starting buying clubs and grocery stores are available:
A nice collection of tips on running a buying club has been provided by Blooming Prairie.
How To Start A Cooperative Food Buying Club
Starting Out Right (Guidelines for Organizing a New Retail Cooperative) Paperback $7
How to Organize and Run a Coop Food Buying Club, video $19
Food Buying Club Special : Starting Out Right, paperback , and How to Organize and Run a Coop Food Buying Club, video $24
Consumer Co-ops: Managing a Pre-Order Food
Cooperative
Some nice (free) software has been developed to assist buying clubs manage their accounts.
Kris Olsen Memorial
The Coop Directory Service (CDS) is dedicated to the memory of Kris Olsen (1946-1998) and his life-long effort to help people find natural food co-ops and start buying clubs.
In so doing, Kris fulfilled his special mission to promote food co-ops among people who knew little or nothing about the natural food co-op system.
Other Information
Coop Camps
Circle Pines Center
This is a children's camp and a year round workshop/retreat center for families, adults and progressive organizations. A registered peace site with the mission of teaching cooperation. It is sixty years old with a rich history and a whole foods kitchen.
Email circle@net-link.net
8650 Mullen Road, Delton MI 49046-0751
Phone (616) 623-5555
FAX (616) 623-9054
Mesaba Coop Park
This is a historic rustic camp started mainly by Finnish-Americans in Northern Minnesota before the Russian revolution. Efforts by some to support the revolution caused a split in its membership still present today. The library has a set of the collected works of Lenin. Charming place --- not to be missed.
3827 Mesaba Park Road, Hibbing MN 55746-8551
Phone (218) 262-1350
This camp
in
Email info@cgcvt.org
Phone (800) 430-2667
FAX (802) 430-2667
Camp is for families, single parent families, and singles. Cooperators from all over California (and elsewhere) come to relax in the beautiful Sierra Mountains in July, and at the Russian River in August, enjoying outings and recreation, socializing, and discussions about issues related to worker, housing, and consumer cooperatives.
Email: coopcamp@ic.org
PMB #415 1442-A Walnut
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 595-0873 Berkeley, (888) 708-CAMP (2267)
Some Of Our Favorite Links
These are links to sites that may be help you save money, simplify your life or are just some of our favorites.
Food-Related Links
Here's a cute Macromedia Flash link CLICK HERE from the Organic Trade Association
You Should Pay More For Your Food - The Hidden Cost of Cheap Food
Learn more about Community Supported Agriculture (Hint: If you pay About $300 each spring to a member farmer you will get 1-2 shopping bags of organic produce each week theu the growing season
- Find a Farmers Market in your area
Click here to send free food to the hungry. HUNGER SITE
Miscellaneous Links
SalesCircular - This site gives the best prices on consumer goods from the major retail stores by state. Of special interest is the category "Free stuff after rebate"
Junkbusters is a free service that will remove your name from junk (e-mail and snail mail) mailing lists, spammers and from the databases of telemarketers.
Want to find the lowest cost long distance company in your area? Try A Bell Tolls.
Want a really good search engine? Try http://www.copernic.com It searches about 15 search engines, very fast and simultaneously!
Tired of filling out forms on the Internet? RoboForm does it automatically for you.
Want very accurate time of the day? Dimension4 is free and easy.
- Click here for a map of area codes by state.
Coop
History
Two works are offered here that
chronicle two periods of co-op history in the upper Midwest --- the first covers the early
development of co-ops between 1900 and 1960, the second covers the ”new
wave" co-ops, in the period 1960 – 1980.
ORIGINS AND LEGACIES The
History of a Cooperative Movement by Cy O’Neil
$2.00
This is a reprint of the 48-page article available from Don Olson Distributing (612) 724-2976. This fascinating history reveals the intimate connection between this regional moment and the Russian Revolution - the photo of the Red Star Chorus is worth the total purchase price.
STOREFRONT
REVOLUTION: Food Co-ops and the Counterculture (Perspectives on the Sixties)
Of special interest is Craig’s
account of the co-op wars between the anarchists and the Communists for control of the
co-ops.
The Minnesota Historical Society has a large collection of source material on co-op history in Minnesota. Kris’s collection of historical material can be found there --- it’s called the “Kris Olsen collection.
More About CDS
Boring Details
The Coop Directory Service (CDS) is a Minnesota non-profit Corporation formed on 5/24/99 under Chapter 317A of the Minnesota Statues. Its legal name is "Cooperating Directory Service, Inc." Application for INS tax-exempt status (under section 501-C-3) is pending. The initial funding came from Kris’s estate - further funding will come from donations.
We wish to thank Inez Olsen, Terry Hokenson Seward Community Grocery and Deli and Lakewinds Natural Food Co-op for their generous financial support of the CDS.
Please send donations in Kris’s memory and to support this service CDS, 1254 Etna Street, St. Paul, MN 55106.
The Executive Director of CDS is Howard J. Hickman.
Our Web address is http://www.coopdirectory.org
Our email address is thegang@coopdirectory.org
This website was designed by Tracy Lea Landis. Comments on the web page itself should go to her at tll@zenwarrior.com
The database of co-op information came from several sources. George Keller, who published a print version of this directory for many years --- ”The National Coop Directory,” compiled the primary source.
George has graciously given his permission to use data from his directory on this site. Kris had a database similar to George’s but with some differences – we have not been able to find the source of this data. We do know that in the past Kris compiled and updated the information for Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Another source was compiled by John Barclay, who maintained this directory, derived initially, from George's database. This directory does not seem to be maintained lately.
Articles that mention Coop Directory Service:
- We were mentioned in an article in Lifetime Fitness Magazine! CLICK HERE to read the article! This information appeared in the October 2005 issue of Experience Life magazine "Food Fright," www.lifetimefitness.com/magazine
A Case By Case Revolution by Craig Cox, Utne Reader
Readers Digest’s “New Choices” May 2001 “Go Organic – And Save Money"
How You Can Help
Financial contributions are needed to support the operation of this service.
Any information you can provide about natural food co-op grocery stores and buying clubs not listed here who wish to be listed will be much appreciated.
Names and addresses of organizations that may be interested in knowing about this service are extremely important to us, please forward any leads to us.