'Meat' Me at the Co-op

by Greg Ellis

Do you love farmer's markets but have a hard time getting to them on a regular basis?  What if there were a store that carried all the same seasonal, fresh, local products every day, all year round?  Great news for all those who live in the North County who are trying to access this abundance — the Paso Robles Food Cooperative is on its way! 

The Cooperative, or Co-op for short, is spearheaded by a group of dedicated Roblans looking to improve access to fresh, local, healthy food.  Their idea is to create a food market and community center that taps into the rich agricultural community and provides meats, dairy, grains, fruits, and vegetables, as well as locally prepared goods such as vinegars, jellies, sauerkraut, cheese, breads, wines, and more.  In addition to local goods the store will carry other sustainably produced foods, bulk items, and other household consumer products.

Cooperation Is Good for You and Me

The group settled on a 'cooperative' business model because it confers many benefits upon shoppers and the community.  To understand these benefits, here's a bit of history.

Food cooperatives began based on the idea that a group of people could get together and buy food items in bulk, receiving wholesale prices.  Often the products they ordered were not available in mainstream stores.  As membership, order volume and variety grew in these 'buying clubs', it began to make sense to have a storefront where anyone could shop.  Members who payed a one-time, upfront membership fee would continue to reap discounts, while the entire community could enjoy the availability of hard to find products. 

In the case of the Paso Robles Food Co-op (PRFC), anyone can buy a $300 membership and become a legal co-owner of the business (payment plans are available too).  Member-owners take on a variety of roles depending on their level of interest and involvement.  Primarily, they can elect board members to run the business, they can give input on how the business develops and operates, and they can decide how business profits are refunded to members and/or reinvested in the community and business.  Some co-ops give members an ongoing discount on every purchase, though most redistribute profits at the end of the year. 

Besides benefiting members, because the PRFC is focused on getting local products out to the community, it will also benefit local food producers by providing a steady demand for their products.

A Tale of Two Dollars

Ultimately, the benefits of a co-op are best illustrated by following the comparative paths of two dollar bills — one spent at a co-op and the other at a conventional grocery store.  First, let's follow the conventionally spent dollar:

$0.16 goes to the farmer who produced the food item.
$0.84 goes to store overhead transportation and storage, advertising expenses, to the chain of middlemen buying and reselling the produce between the farm and the grocery store, and as profit to the corporation.

This supply chain is expensive to a community and obfuscates our food.  Usually these stores channel money outside of the community, depending on supply chains, producers, advertisers, and corporate headquarters with little local footprint.  Many conventional stores pay low wages and take some of the profits earned in a community to reinvest outside of that community, siphoning off community wealth without necessarily asking for community input on how it's spent. 

Finally, it's hard to know exactly where the food came from, who handled it, how old it is, and what it contains.

Now let's track a dollar spent at a food co-op:

$0.62 goes to the farmer who produced the item (for really local items).
$0.19 goes to store workers who are on average paid a higher wage than in conventional grocery stores.
$0.05 goes to store overhead (rent, costs)
$0.02 in profit is refunded to co-op members

The difference is stark.  Farmers make more in this model since there are no middlemen involved and fewer transportation and storage costs.  Workers are paid higher wages and receive better benefits at co-ops as well.  While this example is mainly for the most local items (farmer profits may decrease for items purchased from afar) co-ops carry three times as many local items on average than mainstream grocery stores.  Moreover, it's easier to tell where any given product is coming from--it's often possible to meet the farmer, baker, or rancher who made it!

Besides the direct economic effects of a co-op, also consider that money spent locally recirculates locally.  Because co-ops spend more money on local products and for labor, they create a greater multiplier effect in the local economy than conventional grocery stores.  A co-op with $10 million in gross sales creates a $16 million dollar impact on the economy, about $3 million more than a conventional grocery store that redirects gross sales out of town.

Support the Co-op

The PRFC organizing group, after meeting every week since March, is already undergoing incorporation to become a state-recognized business.  The co-op has a preliminary business plan and feasibility study underway and hopes to complete more thorough plans in the near future.  With much left to be done before opening day, the co-op needs your help — check out the website's Support Us! section to find out how you can become a member, take a pledge, sign a letter of support, or volunteer your skills and services.

Sources

Paso Robles Food Cooperative

Where does most of your grocery money go? Mostly not to the farmer. Eatocracy 2012- Where Does Your Grocery Money Go?

Healthy Foods, Healthy Communities: Measuring the Social and Economic Impacts of Food Co-ops

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