The topic of bringing a Trader Joe’s to Benicia has once again popped up on social media. In some ways, it is encouraging to see so many people who live here voice support for new grocery options in our area. But it is disheartening because there is already a growing grassroots effort under way to bring a food cooperative to town. It’s a more sustainable and equitable option. One that I am convinced if more people knew about, they would abandon their calls for another chain.
When I’m out talking to residents of Solano County they tell me, “I wish you would bring the food co-op to our town.” My response is simple, “Every town should have a food cooperative. But it’s a matter of having people in your town with a vision to get it started.”
I’d like to clarify a few things and share a few ideas because there seems to be some misinformation in these social media threads.
- You do not need to be an owner to shop at the store. We need owners and non-owners to shop at our store. The owners will simply get more discounts, discounts that eventually pay for the ownership. So that’s a no-brainer. In addition, the owners have a say in to what goes on in the store. Owner shares are $300 with a $5 service fee per household. Payment plans available.
- Big government and big business do not care about our little town. WE care about our little town! Time and time again, history has shown that when people unite and work hard for a purpose, things change!
- Food cooperatives have grown up! No longer are they the hippie, granola, food buying clubs of the seventies. Today, food cooperatives are well-oiled machines that drive the cultural and economic centers of communities. They come in all shapes and sizes and are unique to the needs of each community. They have personality!
- Given the choice, why on Earth would anybody choose to have a cookie cutter store that looks exactly like the store just down the highway which lines the pockets of a German billionaire than to get behind the idea (and a grassroots effort that is actually happening now! In our town!) of having a beautiful, unique, thriving, community owned store that puts millions of dollars back into our community. It’s because people don’t yet know the potential of a food cooperative. These people would rather stick with a broken system that is familiar to them, (broken because it’s intended to keep the rich getting richer and the rest of us working harder and harder), than to have the tenacity to created a new system!
- Just ask Kim and Luke of Fairyella Pure Pops (formerly Ice Pops), our town jewel. For the past seven years, while we were out playing every weekend, they were tabling at farmers markets. When they finally made it into the Whole Food Market, they thought they had made it, but NO! They have been put through the ringer by Whole Foods Market. WFM bullied Fairyella into sales and promotions for their profit (FPP took the hit for these discounts) and didn’t honor the terms of their contract agreements, (keep the product stocked regularly) causing slow sales and lost opportunities to scale up and go national. Mind you, FPP loves food co-ops! They sell to food co-ops all over the Bay Area and have a more equitable relationship with them. They will sell their pops in our store! As a result, FPP plans to quit shipping to retail and restructure as a non-profit in hopes to deliver to hospitals, schools and continuer their relationships with local food co-ops, at a better price for all.
- One of our core values is community. “CCFC is rooted in our community, owned by our community and we reinvest in our community” and that is why having a commercial kitchen in our store is so important to us. This commercial kitchen would be used for several things: education for school aged kids, cooking classes, and renting to food producers at a very reasonable price so they can actually make a profit on their product.
- When our local food vendors order raw materials to make their products, we could join forces where we can order in volume so they can get a discount. These are just a couple of ways that cooperatives work together to: a. Help their suppliers create a successful business where they can live a higher quality of life and enjoy their families instead of being stressed to the max by big grocery and b. Bring the cost of food down while still making a profit. See, in a food cooperative nobody has to be exploited to bring the cost of food down. Instead, we work together to find solutions so that everybody benefits.
- We know there are doubters in our community. Just know that we are not doing this alone, we are not reinventing the wheel. There is a proven model that has been used in communities all around the country. it will only be a matter of time until we get to the tipping point and then to our goal of 1200 founding owners.
- Other towns have successfully brought on co-ops that are thriving and provide a framework for a business model that can and will work for Solano County.
- We really are creating history here and there will come a day when people will use the phrase “before the co-op and after the co-op” when talking about the history of our town. The question I have for all of you is “What side of history do you want to be on?”
As an incentive to attract new founding owners to CCFC, Fairyella Pure Pops has gifted our latest Owners from February with a free case of Watermelon Pure Pops (18 pops ea.). Eighteen households will be receiving this special Thank You gift. Now that is the kind of cooperative spirit I’m talking about. More of this please! Thank you so much Kim and Luke!!
For more information about Cultivate Community Food Co-op and to become an Owner, find all our links here: https://linktr.ee/cultivatecommunityfoodcoop
This feature article was written by Paula Schnese, founder of Cultivate Community Food Cooperative.