Park Slope Food Co-Op Kicking Ass
Fresh off the news that the Greene Hill Food Co-Op signed its lease at 18-24 Putnam Avenue, Fortune takes a look at “the rise of the grocery co-op,” focusing specifically on the Park Slope location. The PSFC is the largest consumer-owned co-op by sales in the United States, raking in $39.4 million dollars (or $6,500…
Fresh off the news that the Greene Hill Food Co-Op signed its lease at 18-24 Putnam Avenue, Fortune takes a look at “the rise of the grocery co-op,” focusing specifically on the Park Slope location. The PSFC is the largest consumer-owned co-op by sales in the United States, raking in $39.4 million dollars (or $6,500 per square foot) last year. The reason for success and the big savings? Inventory based on customer demand, requiring all members to work at the store and only allowing members to shop, and a limited selection of items within a small store footprint. And while the article says competing grocery stores have brushed off the PSFC as a one-time success story, it also notes that 200 co-ops are currently in start-up mode. That’s the largest number since the 70s!
The Rise of the Grocery Store Co-Op [Fortune]
Photo by nancyscola
Fresh Direct sells produce raised on small… okay, look. Le sigh. Let’s talk about something else!! Are there really celebrities at the coop like in the Amy Sohn book?
“We have to take really long trips and pay a lot of money (here in Brooklyn, I mean).”
Really? Join your local CSA and get your meat from The Meat Hook. problem solved.
I’m not tired of hearing about it at all, I wish it were easier to buy meat and vegetables raised on small farms. We have to take really long trips and pay a lot of money (here in Brooklyn, I mean).
Or, let me put it more plainly. Perhaps that will help?
The FIRST time someone sighed meaningfully and explained to me that the FDA was toothless the food industrial complex had conspired to ensure that everything we ate was antibiotic-filled and chockful of genetically modified corn flown in on diesel planes from New Zealand? I listened and I was disturbed. I even bought a Michael Pollan book. Then, I read things, I watched a few documentaries, I made some changes in our shopping habits.
But it’s not like you get to hear the message just once. And it’s not like your neighbors don’t stop patting themselves on the back for every venture to the greenmarket, every work shift at the coop, every time they shop at the new butcher that was just opened by three vassar grads who studied at an organic farm for a month, (replacing the old butcher who had been there for thirty years… but who knows where he got his meat?) It never stops. And it’s remarkable how suddenly, socially-responsible grocery shopping is practically a competitive sport.
There’s nothing wrong with being a responsible consumer, I’m just tired of hearing about it. Am I the only one?
” Worrying about the provenance of my food. All the time. Can I just buy a chicken? No, I have to know how the bird was fed, and how far away it came from. Can I buy a pineapple? No, not ever because they don’t grow near here. Can I give the moppet a juice box? It depends, do I want to be responsible for the destruction of the planet and contribute to this country’s obesity epidemic? Etc.
I wish the backlash against the rabid locavores would come soon. It’s tiring.”
This is why i shop at Shoprite. I just can’t be bothered stressing over my food. I eat healthy and that’s good enough for me. All you locavores will die of something anyway, you’ll just look over your obsessed lives from your death bed and see you had no FUN the entire time you where here.
And…still ranting, sorry…I hate the way that people in the Food Coop seem to think it is their right to stick their nose into your shopping.
Like, I’ll be reaching for something on the shelf, and all of a sudden some voice will screech at my elbow, “The other brand is much better.”
The culture of the Food Coop is to create this faux solidarity, that means you’re supposed to be able to just walk up to any stranger there and start conversing about their food.
I guess I’m just too wasp-y or something, but it totally turns me off. I don’t like being forced into group-identity. If I grew up in China I’d probably be in some agricultural prison by now.
Miss Priss, I’m shocked that you don’t want chickens crawling with salmonella. After all, most of your less enlightened neighbors surely do!
Count me among the PSFC haters.
What annoyed me when I was a member there is that, for all their stupid rules and regulations and notions of “cooperation” and “fairness” their work shift model discriminates against single person households. I would work checkout where certain couples would be buying masses of food–like, twelve boxes of cereal–enough to stock their very own groceries.
All this, for just two work shifts.
Meanwhile, I was buying as much food as I could to try to make my one work shift a month worthwhile, but I could never buy and eat enough to realize any real savings.
I also hated the crowding, the long lines even at non-peak hours, and most of all, the attitude. The last time I was there–to help a friend with a broken collarbone do his shopping–I had to get a pass stamped by two people upstairs before they would let me in.
Who doesn’t love super cheap, ultra high quality groceries? Obviously the business model works great, but they better think about opening a second location merely to serve their existing members.