Food Coops – a growing alternative to supermarkets

Published by Marie Daffe on January 18, 2017January 18, 2017

[cs_content][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-right”]January 18th, 2017[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-justify”]Food coops are getting more and more successful all over the world. At the same time, supermarket’s sales have been declining for several years. The emergence of this new kind of supermarket shows a growing interest of the consumers for their food, the way it is produced and its impact on the environment. In short, consumers are taking back control on their feeding.[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-justify”]At first glance some traditional stores and coops could seem quite similar. They actually aren’t. Their whole working systems are light years away from each other. A coop is above all owned by its members. Each of them bought a part of it and is committed to work a couple of hours in the store every month. The main advantage of this system is that the members – who are also the customers – can decide of what they want to sell in the store. They can pick better quality food than in supermarkets and promote organic and/or local production, all in full respect of suppliers, which we know is not really the case with big supermarkets chains. [/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-justify”]Another advantage is that thanks to their monthly work, members can buy quality food at discounted prices. All coops are not opened to general public but the ones that are, like the Dublin Food Coop, practice a two-prices system: one for the members and an other one, more expensive, for the non-members.[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-justify”]Park Slope Food Coop is the oldest food coop in the USA. It is based in Brooklyn, New York, since 1973. A documentary by Tom Boothe has been recently released about the it (trailer below). Its tagline is: “The greatest social experience in the USA, very bad news for the agro food industry” Park Slope has now 17,000 members, who work 2 hours 45 minutes per month for the coop. Its example has inspired many similar projects around the world, like for instance Beescoop in Belgium and La Louve in France.[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” class=”cs-ta-center” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_video_embed no_container=”true” type=”16:9″][/x_video_embed][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-justify”]The pattern of coop owes its success to the will of consumers to take back control on their food. They have trusted supermarkets for a very long time before realizing that the agro food industry doesn’t really have their best interest at heart. The succession of food scandals has ended to dissolve this confidence. Nowadays people want quality food, but not only. They want to know where the food is coming from, who produced it and in what conditions. They also wish to promote local production and no longer products coming from the other side of the planet, even if it means to pay a little bit more. [/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-justify”]A less obvious but equally interesting aspect of food coop is that they can do a lot in reducing food waste. As they mainly focus on local producers, they sell only what is available and do not make vegetables come by thousands from south of Spain to then send half of them to the bin. They can in the same vein act against overpackaging by choosing more eco-friendly produces. In short, with food coops, environment is now taken into account. [/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-justify”]The time where the price was the only criterion is thus over. Consumers have discovered what was hidden behind the low prices of supermarkets and it was not really pleasant. This awareness from the consumers is already at the origin of the increasing sales of organic food. It’s now going a step further with an emerging new kind of supermarkets. [/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” class=”cs-ta-center” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_image type=”none” src=”https://greennews.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/logo.jpg” alt=”” link=”true” href=”http://voiceireland.org/” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text class=”cs-ta-justify”]Click on the logo of our partner VOICE to learn about what you can do against food waste.[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][cs_text]Featured image: Co-op Sign. Credit: Sergey Galyonkin – Flickr[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_author title=”About the Author” author_id=””][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][/cs_content]