Food Co-Ops

Food cooperatives (co-ops) are alternatives to conventional food distribution centers such as grocery stores and supermarkets. A food co-op is different from the aforementioned outlets because it typically doesn’t operate under a profit-motive, or at least doesn’t have profit-margins as the core objective. Rather, it is a member or community-supported distribution center in which the consumers buy food in bulk from wholesalers, avoiding costly middle-man markups. Despite having a primary purpose of providing low-cost, healthy food to its members, food co-ops often also provide educational programs regarding food production and nutrition information and can empower local communities to take charge of their methods of food procurement (What is a Co-op). Although there are tenable criticisms of the long-term and practical efficacy of food co-ops, ones that implement a holistic approach that focuses on addressing food insecurity, distributing reasonably-priced nutritious food, and involving the local community in operating the co-op smoothly, like Weavers Way Co-op in Philadelphia,

Impediments to a successful food co-op range from inadequate management, lack of volunteer participation, inconvenience and eventual decline of membership. These are veritable critiques and have been shown to have contributed to the failure of some co-ops. In their article titled The Food Co-op Potential in The Journal of Consumer Affairs, researchers Donald Marion and Bisrat Aklilu documented the beginnings of two different food co-ops, both operating in urban areas with one, the Alpha co-op, being located in a low-income community and the other, the Zeta co-op, being located in a community falling under a modestly higher income bracket. Marion and Aklilu noticed that the success of the co-ops was largely dependent on an amalgam of community involvement and outside investment (Marion,