Community Mercantile (The Merc) in Lawrence, Kan., welcomed six new employees to its ranks in the spring of 2010—not at all unusual for our co-op of 130 employees—but these enthusiastic employees...
Most would agree that a healthy board-general manager relationship not only makes the co-op run more smoothly, it is a critical connection between member-owners and operations in our...
People in the Berkshires of Massachusetts love local food! They search for it at co-ops, farmers markets, CSAs and anywhere else they can find fresh food produced close to home. Many of them even...
The largest single farmer in Britain is The Co-operative Farms, a subsidiary of The Co-operative Group. They farm 55,000 acres at 15 locations throughout England and Scotland. Of those acres, 20,...
PCC Natural Markets in Seattle didn't plan to start a nonprofit in 1999. But one of its local farmers, Nash Huber, was facing development pressure in "Sunny Sequim," a rare sun-filled valley in...
Like most food cooperatives, the Sacramento and Davis co-ops have longstanding and strong commitments to purchasing from and supporting local farms. And they realize that local farmland is under...
Ocean Beach People's Organic Food Co-op began its partnerships with small organic farms in 1998 when it sponsored a farmer to attend The Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the...
Food production and water are current issues for many regional planning commissioners who are awake, including ours in Jefferson County, Wash., where The Food Co-op is located. As the price of...
More than 30 co-ops in 18 states have contributed to a unique film documentary about food co-ops, local economies, and food security. Food For Change is a work in progress that focuses on the role...
When selecting a natural food co-op store location, there are a number of characteristics that can add to, or detract from, the store's opportunity for success or failure. This article is the...
Like no other generation, Gen Y gets the green movement. They've grown up with terms such as going green, triple bottom line, sustainable, organic, local. And Gen Y (generally defined as those...
When Food Co-op 500 was founded in late 2004, it took its name from Marilyn Scholl's challenge to the co-op community to build our sector to 500 storefronts within the next 10 years. The new wave...
Local food projects highlighted in these pages are essential components of a future that in many ways will be much more constrained, requiring us to come closer to living within resource limits....
