
Stuck in a Food Desert, Neighbors Are Building a Co-Op of Their Own - kawera
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/after-decades-in-a-food-desert-these-neighbors-build-a-2-million-co-op-and-they-own-it-20151112
======
Symbiote
The UK has at least 4,000 co-operative food stores [1], most of which use a
common brand even as they're run by different groups. (There are probably a
few independent co-operatives, too.) I'm curious how they decide where to set
up a new one.

One of my relatives was a very strong supporter of the Co-op movement. He
shopped there, used their bank, bought appliances and energy from them, took
their package holidays, and left instructions in their will that he was to
have a Co-op funeral. I was impressed that he stuck to his belief for his
whole life.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co-
operative_Food](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co-operative_Food)

~~~
chrisseaton
Are they really co-operatives? I thought they were just regular supermarkets
with a loyalty card and a political wing (!).

Now I think about it, the fact that 24 of our MPs are members of a political
party funded by a chain of shops is really weird.

~~~
Symbiote
They are really co-operatives. You can join the biggest co-operative here [1].
I used to be a member (before I left the UK), and before the financial crisis
I was sent a £10-or-so dividend each year. Some years there's been no
dividend, when the money has been invested in the business. Members also vote
for the board.

This one is smaller, just for the East of England [2], but has paid a dividend
this year.

[1] [http://www.co-operative.coop/membership/](http://www.co-
operative.coop/membership/)

[2] [http://www.thenews.coop/95226/news/co-operatives/east-
englan...](http://www.thenews.coop/95226/news/co-operatives/east-england-co-
operative-announces-3-1m-dividend-payment/)

~~~
chrisseaton
A dividend and voting rights - isn't that what you'd get with owning a share
of Tesco which isn't a cooperative?

~~~
ptaipale
Yes; the difference is, I understand, that in a co-op, every owner has one
vote and gets the same dividend. So you cannot buy a bulk of the stock to
invest more heavily, nor can you buy a controlling stake.

------
laen
I'm glad the co-op is able to bring the community together, however, I am
disturbed by the fact that like the title implies, residents were "stuck."
Grocery stores were 2.5 miles away, but that was too far to get reasonably
priced food and instead residents were gouged for $5 gallons of milk at the
corner store.

I fear that the $2 million being invested into the co-op could have been
better used for infrastructure, not only enabling folks to journey to nearby
grocery stores, but also opening up more employment opportunities.

~~~
timdiggerm
Infrastructure investments are long, time-consuming, and done by municipal or
state governments, not by residents & non-profits. Evidently the government
didn't care enough to make that possible.

Additionally, they're not always a great option. Here are the bus route
suggestions from the affected area to the nearest grocery stores:

\-
[https://www.google.com/maps/dir/2200+Phillips+Ave,+Greensbor...](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/2200+Phillips+Ave,+Greensboro,+NC+27405/Walmart+Supercenter,+2107+Pyramid+Village+Blvd,+Greensboro,+NC+27405/@36.08939,-79.7848686,14z/am=t/data=!3m1!4b1!4m18!4m17!1m5!1m1!1s0x88531f5b1c0cd7ff:0x357de7f501f5c24!2m2!1d-79.749366!2d36.096853!1m5!1m1!1s0x88531f69594cc4dd:0x1c70bc17e74d709c!2m2!1d-79.756949!2d36.109195!2m3!6e4!7e2!8j1448265600!3e3)

\-
[https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Kim+Food+Mart/Food+Lion,+231...](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Kim+Food+Mart/Food+Lion,+2316+E+Market+St,+Greensboro,+NC+27420/@36.0873155,-79.7625958,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x0:0x555dfc2f1f23b982!2m2!1d-79.749366!2d36.096853!1m5!1m1!1s0x885318b72a7e778f:0xe2d6c97110890524!2m2!1d-79.757003!2d36.075666!3e3)

20min one-way bus rides are pretty time consuming.

~~~
dublinben
It's not as if these places are impossible to access. The existing bus routes
are just not well planned for this trip. These journeys are both less than 15
minutes by bike.

[http://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=mapzen_bicycl...](http://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=mapzen_bicycle&route=36.0972%2C-79.7494%3B36.0704%2C-79.7577#map=15/36.0840/-79.7535)

[http://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=mapzen_bicycl...](http://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=mapzen_bicycle&route=36.0972%2C-79.7494%3B36.1116%2C-79.7558#map=15/36.1046/-79.7572)

Not only can you carry more food on a bike than you can on the bus, but it's
good exercise too.

~~~
kaitai
I'd be much more scared to bike in Greensboro than in Manhattan. Drivers
aren't used to bikes and the streets in some areas are poorly set up for
biking (no shoulders, many lanes in each direction, high speed limits, so you
have to cross four lanes of traffic with one a highway entrance to make a left
turn).

~~~
teddyc
In the 1990s, I got hit by a car while biking in the bike lane in Greensboro,
on UNCG campus.

------
zschuessler
Unrelated question - is anyone aware of why when you hear about cooperatives,
it almost always pertains to food?

I love the idea of having cooperatives for _all_ types of business (welding
shops, software engineering groups, etc etc). It's such a great business
model: promotes passion in employees, business decisions are vetted by
multiple people, and many great things for the community.

I sometimes dream of starting a non-profit that pays for all the legal
documents (the big one being bylaws and how it _should_ operate under member
management). So any Jane Doe not gifted in legalese could start a cooperative
for her idea.

~~~
xj9
We are still experimenting (though we _are_ profitable), but my startup[1] is
working on an open source toolkit for building cooperative businesses. Our
eventual goals are to build a diverse network of coops across multiple
industries and to lower the barrier of entry for being a business owner/co-
owner.

I would _love_ to see coops everywhere! Unfortunately they can be a bit
complicated to set up and operate. I really hope we can change that.

[1]: [https://infinite.ai](https://infinite.ai)

~~~
zschuessler
This is _exactly_ what I had imagined. Very cool, I wish you the best of luck!

------
sbuccini
This article won't make sense if you're not from the area.

If you live in Greensboro, you need a car to be effective. The structure of
the city (suburban sprawl with few boulevards) means that public transit is
slow and unreliable.

Also, this is more than just a grocery store. It will be the anchor of a strip
mall that has been decaying ever since the Winn-Dixie left. It is a way to
organize and galvanize neighborhood members. It will provide good jobs to
those in the area. These intangibles go far beyond the small profit the store
will make.

------
kaitai
Co-ops are great! I am from a part of the US that has a lot, thanks to the
trickle-down influence of all the left-wingers in northern Minnesota and upper
Michigan (Wisconsin seems to have a different ethnic mix and lots of farmer
co-ops but not as many buyer co-ops.) It seems to be a good time for co-ops
again in some parts of the US: they're growing lots of places and they can be
a good investment when they're expanding. Kudos to the Greensboro-ans, and I
hope they see the power they can wield when they work together!

------
Agustus
Here is a great contrarian point to the CityLab discovery about induced
demand. An individual is unwilling to walk 2 miles to the nearest grocery
store, the solution would be to take a bus, however a route does not exist the
ideal solution would be a car. However, entrepreneurs stepped in and
identified what the non-car community would pay for things and still turn a
profit: $5 for milk from readily available stores. As an aside, how is this
any different from Walgreens/CVS' model of having multiple convenient
locations, but charge a larger premium.

The idea of a food desert is non-sense as people have access to food, they
just want cheaper prices.

~~~
kaitai
I think you're missing some supply and demand calculations here. Since many
people can't afford $5 for the milk, don't have a car, can't walk the 2 miles
back & forth with 4 kids because they don't have enough stroller space for 2
and can't carry the purchased food and the kid at the same time, they just
don't buy the milk. They buy the Coke for $0.99 at the gas station.

If you're poor of course you want cheaper prices! "Let them eat cake..."

------
nemo44x
I could be totally off base here, but couldn't people without access to a good
grocery store just buy their groceries online and have them delivered? Does it
cost more to have groceries shipped?

I understand Co-Op's offer more cheaply priced groceries and that's a great
community project so I'm not suggesting Co-Op's have no point. They're great
things. I'm just wondering what the difference between big box grocery stores
and online grocery delivery is?

~~~
acketon
Online grocery delivery is still only in limited, typically wealthy areas and
is still more expensive. I think it also caters to people buying higher priced
items such as more expensive meat or seafood, where the cost of delivering it
is a small percentage of the value. Let's assume for a box filled with $5 and
$10 items such as chicken, steak, coffee, etc that the delivery cost is $0.25
or $0.50 per item... that might not be a big deal for people here. But say
you're buying boxes of $1.00 Rice in a box, or cans of beans and the cost of
delivery makes a bigger difference in your cost per meal.

Items sold in online grocery services are also marked up higher than they are
in stores, for example: "Celeste Frozen Pizza is 99-cents at ShopRite, $1.29
at Peapod and a whopping $2.69 at FreshDirect"(source:
[http://6abc.com/archive/8983520/](http://6abc.com/archive/8983520/))

It also assumes that people can be home for the delivery, neighborhoods like
this might not be the type where you want $50 to $100 worth of groceries
sitting outside your apartment building.

Making the actual payment is another thing to consider. Not everyone has
credit or debit cards. It looks like online grocery sellers also can't legally
accept EBT, Wic or other food programs for online grocery delivery:
[https://www.facebook.com/notes/peapod-delivers/why-we-
dont-a...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/peapod-delivers/why-we-dont-accept-
ebt-as-a-form-of-payment/425235895574)

Online groceries require planning, time, and at least for the foreseeable
future will come at a premium cost. It's great for certain people but I hope
it does not become the only option for groceries.

------
vermontdevil
This is how the Onion River Coop started (City Market) in Burlington.

[https://www.citymarket.coop/](https://www.citymarket.coop/)

------
fiatmoney
"A mile or more from a grocery store" isn't that terribly far - plenty of
suburbs, to say nothing of rural areas, meet that criteria.

~~~
tonyarkles
Now imagine that you're living paycheque to paycheque, barely making ends
meet, and your car breaks down and you can't afford to fix it until next
month. How do you buy groceries? You walk over to the corner store talked
about in the article and pay $5 for a gallon of milk.

Speaking from my own (not super broad) experience, people who live in suburbs
are often better off than the people that this article is talking about.
Having to drive to get groceries, while necessary, isn't the same kind of
hardship. And most of the rural folks I know have two things that help: a huge
pantry down in the basement full of canned goods and a deep-freeze or two full
of frozen food, and a good enough relationship with their neighbours that they
could get a ride or tow into town to get their car fixed.

It's weird in my city. There's a pile of apartment buildings right downtown,
but there hasn't been a grocery store there for probably 10-15 years. I lived
there when I was a student (it was a short-ish walk to the university), the
only time I managed to actually buy groceries and cook was when my roommate
and I happened to be home at the same time and we could use her car (when it
was working). Otherwise, the easiest food to get was Subway which was less
than a block away, or eat on Campus before I came home. Transit was a waste of
time, it'd take over an hour each way to get to a grocery store. It was pretty
much the definition of a Food Desert, and it sucked.

------
surge
I'm sitting in Greensboro right now, this doesn't surprise me.

