Recap: Creating New Food Cooperatives with an Equity Focus

Posted on June 10, 2023

On May 31st CFF partnered with Sustainable Agriculture and Food System Funders to host a briefing titled Creating New Food Cooperatives with an Equity Focus.

The webinar featured two justice-oriented food co-ops in the region: the Central Brooklyn Food Co-op (CBFC), a start-up food co-op working to open a store in Central Brooklyn, and Kingston Food Co-op, a co-op in Kingston, NY that will be opening soon.

We also heard from Food Co-op Initiative (FCI), a nonprofit organization that provides free training, technical assistance, resources, peer learning opportunities and support to organizers starting co-ops across the country. FCI has worked with CBFC and Kingston Food Co-op.

Presenters:

  • Faye Mack, Food Cooperative Initiative
  • Keyvious Avery, Kingston Food Coop
  • Rae Gomes, Central Brooklyn Food Coop

To learn more about the speakers, you can read their bios here.

Panel Discussion

First, Faye Mack of FCI provided foundational information about food cooperatives—what a food co-op is, internationally recognized principles that govern co-ops, and how co-ops build access, community power and “support for local” (local food producers, leadership, jobs and nonprofits).

Then, we moved into a panel discussion. Here are key themes addressed by the panel:

  • Co-ops can be structured in different ways depending on the needs and process of the community. Co-ops prioritize centering people, not profit. Keyvious Avery and Rae Gomes shared how their co-ops are structured, and their strategies for centering Black and Brown low- to moderate-income communities. For example, at CBFC, in order to shop, you must be a member—and membership is open to all, with two investment options. Members are owners and decision makers and contribute labor, which helps keep prices down. At Kingston Food Co-op, you don’t have to be a member to shop, and when shopping, pricing is based on your membership status. There are different types of memberships, including solidarity memberships, which are pay-what-you-can.
  • Building community is essential for building a co-op. Presenters offered their approaches to growing community involvement and buy-in, and establishing creative community collaborations. For instance, Keyvious discussed the importance of engaging their membership in planning the co-op infrastructure, as well as finding ways to collaborate (rather than compete) with local bodegas. Kingston Food Co-op has prioritized relationships with the goal of creating a thriving, equitable local food system that reflects the people of Kingston. They are focusing on building a place-based and place-sourced local food system and are seeking to make the co-op transparent and accessible—including through free groceries and on-site child care. Rae highlighted how Central Brooklyn Co-Op is partnering with local nonprofits and with Black and POC farmers.
  • Learning together about the history of Black-led food movements supports Black-led co-op organizing today. Rae emphasized the value of learning about and incorporating the history of Black-led food co-ops and initiatives—and connecting with folks who did that work. She explained that this work is “our ancestral lineage”—and it is essential to uncover that invisibilized history and learn from and continue that work. She mentioned a documentary about The East, a pan-African cultural organization founded in 1969 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, that created a food co-op. The CBFC community gathered for a viewing of the film, which re-energized their base.
  • There are tensions in creating an anti-capitalist organization in a capitalist structure. Developing a co-op model is complex because the goal is to be both sustainable and accessible. Keyvious and Rae discussed how their co-ops learned to work collaboratively, with democratic processes and deliberation of cooperative values—breaking the capitalist principle of competition and liberating local infrastructure. It’s hard to run a values- and mission-driven grocery store, and Faye shared data on how accessing support (through FCI or a similar organization) can lead to more successful outcomes. FCI has a guidebook with steps and a four-stage model of cooperative development that integrates organizing and business development.
  • Market research can be a useful tool, re-envisioned by Black-led organizations. Presenters described how, as Black-led organizations, conducting an exercise in anti-capitalism using capitalist tools (that reflect biases of the capitalist market) doesn’t get you the results you need in terms of identifying the products and approaches that will sustain your efforts. They made intentional efforts to transform and re-envision approaches to market studies to gather information that reflects their local communities.
  • There are many ways that funders can support food co-op organizing—and it is important that funders understand that the work takes time. Rae shared the challenges of organizing in a shifting landscape, and realities of developing a co-op in a neighborhood experiencing gentrification. It is important for funders to understand that context and the value of exploring the history of local movements. In addition to providing money, she recommended that funders consider the technical assistance and connections they can offer. They can provide access to their networks so that organizers can learn about local real estate, build connections with city government representatives and acquire information. Keyvious discussed how capitalist framing expects immediate progress and exponential growth—and it is critical to have a funder that allows for the exploration of alternative ways to exist in the economy. Faye suggested that funders view investing in a co-op as an investment (not a charitable donation), keep grant applications simple and recognize that things will inevitably become more expensive and take more time (as is true with any business and/or construction project).
  • It does take time to develop a co-op—and there are ways to keep hope alive through the process! It takes many years to start a co-op, in part because you need to build membership involvement and move through processes of collective decision making.  Keyvious and Rae shared their experiences with keeping hope alive and keeping the work moving over time. Their strategies included holding meetings consistently, focusing on outcomes, and staying rooted in your cooperative principles, mission and vision—building a family of folks around it, with community driving the work.

If you weren’t able to join the event—or want to share it or watch it again—the recording and related resources are shared below. The slides from each presentation are visible in the video, but you can also download the slides shared from Food Cooperative Initiative, Central Brooklyn Food Coop, and Kingston Food Co-op.

You can use the following time markers to jump to different sections:

  • Start – Welcome and introductions by Adam  Liebowitz, CFF Director
  • 5:00 – Framing and 101 on food co-ops by Faye Mack, Food Coop Initiative 
  • 15:55 – Panel discussion: Rae Gomes and Keyvious Avery share about their organizations, work and the communities they are serving.
    • 16:48 – Rae Gomes, Central Brooklyn Food Coop
    • 25:03 – Keyvious Avery, Kingston Food Co-op
    • 32:18 – Keyvious and Rae each outline the current state of their co-op and future plans, including how they are approaching funding
  • 40:28 – All presenters discuss the role of money (as anti-capitalist organizations) and the role of philanthropy in co-op development. 
  • 1:03:45 – Q&A

Resources

Articles & Films

Websites