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gmarie21
Guest
What exactly is a food co-op? What all does it entail? Is it worth the money and time to belong to one? Does it really produce enough in savings to be worth it?
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O
OutinChgoburbs
Guest
A food co-op, basically, is a bunch of people who get together to buy food at a reduced rate, either through wholesale, bulk or warehouse food prices, generally but not always as a non-profit, which excludes a tax rate in some, but not all, areas of the country.
If your mom, your sister, your cousin and you get together to buy a non-profit membership at a warehouse store, calling yourselves the Buyin’ Betties, you have formed a form of a food co-op.
If your township trucks in fresh produce to the township hall every month, and you sign up from time to time to buy a load, you belong to a food co-op. This is not the same as the farmers’ market, where anybody walks up and farms and other individuals sell their produce and good directly to you.
If you order a package or more through a food club such as SHARE or Angelfood, you use a food co-op.SHARE specifically advertises itself as a food club.
If there is a formal non-profit co-op in your area, as there is in some areas of Chicago proper, and they have a store with scales and meat counter and all the stuff that makes it a store, and you are vetted by the leadership, and they accept you, and you shop there; you are a member of a food co-op.
If your mom, your sister, your cousin and you get together to buy a non-profit membership at a warehouse store, calling yourselves the Buyin’ Betties, you have formed a form of a food co-op.
If your township trucks in fresh produce to the township hall every month, and you sign up from time to time to buy a load, you belong to a food co-op. This is not the same as the farmers’ market, where anybody walks up and farms and other individuals sell their produce and good directly to you.
If you order a package or more through a food club such as SHARE or Angelfood, you use a food co-op.SHARE specifically advertises itself as a food club.
If there is a formal non-profit co-op in your area, as there is in some areas of Chicago proper, and they have a store with scales and meat counter and all the stuff that makes it a store, and you are vetted by the leadership, and they accept you, and you shop there; you are a member of a food co-op.
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JustAnotherThou
Guest
When I lived in Colorado we had this sharecolorado.com/
It is such a wonderful program, I think they have expanded to 5 states now!!! Waiting for them to reach Indiana
It is such a wonderful program, I think they have expanded to 5 states now!!! Waiting for them to reach Indiana
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OutinChgoburbs
Guest
Actually, SHARE is a very old program, started in the late 1970s. It used to be that for every package of food you purchased, you had to contribute someplace, somewhere 3 hours of service. Then, the program was revised, and it was 1 hour of service. Now, it isn’t mandatory, but one can proudly list one’s hours spent in church, community, or person-to-person volunteerism every month.When I lived in Colorado we had this sharecolorado.com/
It is such a wonderful program, I think they have expanded to 5 states now!!! Waiting for them to reach Indiana
The only SHARE I could find in Indiana was in Boone County. bccn.boone.in.us/sac/dir/Low_Income_Assistance.html
It’s listed as “assistance” which can really turn people off.
BUT, if you live on the Indiana border near Northern Illinois, there are SHARE locations in Lake and Cook County.
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