Comment by qrush

2 years ago

Just wanted to flag that there are areas in the US that co-operative enterprises do flourish and have knock-on effects. This is biased by my food co-operative experience but just to show that there is an alternative to unfettered capitalism where businesses help each other thrive.

- The Minneapolis/St. Paul region has so many food co-ops that there's a co-operative warehouse dedicated to serving them (and other businesses too) https://www.cpw.coop/

- New England has a multitude of 30-40 year old food co-ops (along with startups like mine) and has its own association of food co-ops to help advocate for better state policy/governance http://nfca.coop/

- National Co-op Grocers is a US-wide group that helps co-ops buy food at cheaper rates and provides a ton of great branding food co-ops who are members get to use https://www.grocery.coop/

I'd love to see more tech co-operatives sprout up someday... there is an alternative to VC that keeps ownership equal, and it's been all around us this whole time!

3 comments

qrush

Reply
Optimal_Persona  2 years ago

I also have a background in food co-ops (member owned), I was in the bakery of one for 7 years, then served on its board. Food co-ops are really interesting orgs because food is one of the things people can control in their lives so their feelings, neuroses, fears etc. come out.

When we expanded about 17 years ago we managed to drive a new Whole Foods that had sprouted across town out of business within a year. Haven't heard of that happening elsewhere. They had a terrible location which didn't help but I think it was more due to the loyalty of our customers who had buy-in (literally).