|
Retail Local Food Cooperatives for Oklahoma?
Update: May 10, 2003
Draft budget (a work in progress)
Draft articles of incorporation and bylaws (another work in progress)
Cooperative organizing best practices
Since first posting this proposal last December (original proposal is below), there has been a
considerable amount of discussion and work done on this project. We are presently drafting
articles of incorporation and bylaws, and will hold a board meeting in June. Some highlights of
our work thus far:
- Goal: Our goal is to open Oklahoma Food retail grocery cooperatives throughout the state. The
immediate first step is to open one store in the Oklahoma City area, which if successful, would
then be replicated.
- Method of business operation: The stores will only sell Oklahoma grown and/or processed
foods, Oklahoma made crafts, art, and other such products approved by the Board, and imported
food items that are not produced within the state, including coffee, tea, sugar, olive oil, certain
herbs and spices not produced in the state, chocolate and cocoa, bananas, citrus. Producers will
stock the stores on consignment, and may also rent cubicle space to highlight their products.
Producers will pay a commission to the store for the sale of the products; there will be different
levels of commission based on identified criteria.
The cooperative members will be both customers and producers, and all will have equal voting
rights and an equal share in the capital fixed assets of the cooperative, based on their purchase ofa
membership share in the cooperative. There will be a vice president for customers and a vice
president for producers to affirmatively represent the interests of each of the two groups in the
cooperative's governance.
The members are the ultimate governing authority of the cooperative and elect the officers, the
board and various committees, and approve/consent/reject various actions of the board. Each
store will have its own store committee, and members will declare a primary store at the time of
their purchase of a share for the purpose of electing the store committee, although all members
can shop or sell at any of the stores operated by the cooperative. No person may own and vote
more than one share, but persons may donate money to buy shares for low income people for
whom purchasing a membership share would be a hardship. The price of a membership share
may be made in payments. Our present best guess is that a share will cost somewhere between $50
and $150.
During the initial share selling campaign, in advance of the opening of any stores, people may
declare a store membership in the following areas. A percentage of their membership share, to be
determined by the board, will be placed in escrow to go towards opening a store in their area:
- Oklahoma City metropolitan area
- Tulsa metropolitan area
- Muskogee area
- McAlester area
- Lawton area
- Woodward area
- Clinton area
- Enid area
- Stillwater area
- Ada/Durant area
- Bartlesville/Ponca City area
The purpose of this cooperative is not to make a profit or surplus, but rather to provide a
marketplace for local Oklahoma food products and for the convenience of the members, a
restricted list of certain imported items.
The value of a membership share in the cooperative at all times will be based on the value of the
fixed assets of the cooperative divided by the number of members. For the purposes of the initial
share selling campaign, which we hope to begin this summer, we will divide the proposed budget
by 2,000, which is the number of members we think are necessary, at a minimum, to support such
a store. Any surplus from member participation which be refunded at the end of the fiscal year to
the members in proportion to their patronage. Any surplus from non member participation may
be divided equally among the members or used for capital acquisition, expansion, or replacement.
We decided against financing general operations of the cooperative with an annual Sam's Club
type fee, but the membership may vote an annual assessment on each member for the purposes of
funding cooperative education and social activities.
Our goal is to create an enterprise that is (a) socially just, (b) naturally sustainable, and (c)
operates on sound business principles. The name of the enterprise will be: Oklahoma Food Retail
Grocery Cooperative. The stores will operate under the name "Oklahoma Cooperative Hometown
Independent Established Stores," which creates the acronym OCHIES, which can be produced
OKIES.
Each store will have a commercial kitchen attached, where producers can process or preserve their
products and thus add value to them in a way that is in accordance with the food safety laws and
health department regulations.
We anticipate that meat (beef, pork, poultry) will be handled in two ways: (1) sold frozen on the
premises, either by the cut of the box, and, (2) at a meatless meat market, where offers and details
could be posted, and orders taken for later delivery.
Customer sand producers will buy a membership share in the cooperative in order to shop or sell
at the cooperative. Non members can shop at the cooperative's stores, but they will pay a
surcharge on their purchases.
We prefer to have smaller stores, and have more of them. We have an internet discussion going
about this project at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/okfoodret/ . Everybody is invited to join the
conversation.
We have held a series of meetings around the state, and the following folks have been elected or
appointed to serve on the Organizing Committee of the Cooperative (name, residence,
occupation):
Robert Waldrop, OKC (pastoral musician and cooperative instigator)
Mark Parman, Webbers
Falls, (farmer)
Jackie Dill, Coyle (farmer)
April Harrington, Lexington (farmer and
herbalist)
Kim Barker, Waynoka (farmer)
Mario Tur, Oklahoma City (architect)
Dennis Pierson, Oklahoma City (retired military)
Valerie Mettry, Norman
(caterer)
Walt Kelly, Norman (mathematics professor)
Jackie Sellens, Norman (student
activist)
Lyle Miller, Clinton (farmer)
Kathy Carter White, Tahlequah (attorney)
Rev.
Jonalu Johnstone, Oklahoma City (religious minister)
We are developing a verification system to guarantee the claims of the producers. This will
include (1) certified organic, (2) Oklahoma all natural (organic but not certified), (3) for non
organic foods, use of pesticides, herbicides, and commercial fertilizers, (4) Oklahoma origin, (5)
human treatment of livestock and meat animals.
Diana Endicott, of Good Natured Family Farms, a cooperative in the Kansas City area, has agreed
to be a consultant to our project, specializing in helping us develop our verification system.
- We have submitted a grant application for a USDA community food grant. As part of that grant
project, we put together a first budget, and collected pledges of money, expertise, and other in
kind support amounting to more than $100,000.
This is a snapshot of our present progress. Much remains to be done, including holding meetings
in the Tulsa area. The articles of incorporation have yet to be finalized, and there may be changes
in the description above, but this is the direction we are presently heading.
The present draft of the proposed articles of incorporation is here. The budget is here
(Both are definitely "works in progress".)
ORIGINAL PROPOSAL POSTED DECEMBER 2002
Since beginning the Oklahoma Food Co-op website, I have been going through a lot of thinking, discernment, and brainstorming, online and off, with many people. It is evident to me that (a) there is a
consumer demand that shows great promise for Oklahoma food, and (b) there are more and more producers that want to sell direct to
customers.
Right now, the primary organized marketplace for Oklahoma foods are
the various farmers markets. There are secondary markets that center on each individual producer. The Skelton's, for example, have a set
of regular customers, they may or may not be part of the farmer's
market customer base.
Thus far, both the development of individual customer bases and the
farmers market system have been very successful. Our household has
all the beef we can eat thanks to our relationship with the Skelton
family. And thanks to the McGehee family, our Christmas ham was a
Oklahoma naturally grown locally cured ham, that basically cost us
$2/lb. Any grocery store in town will be happy to sell you an inferior
quality ham for more money.
There is another market with a similar situation: antiques. You have
a lot of small individual producers (people who have or buy antiques
for sale) and a lot of individual consumers who want to buy them. Not everybody has the money to open a store all by themselves, but if you
drive down May south of NW 23rd and out on NW 10th in Oklahoma City, you pass many "antique malls". There's one in my home town of Frederick, where the Penny's store used to be (when I was a kid
Frederick had a CR Anthony, Perkins Timberlake, Pennys, and Norwoods
chain department stores on its main streets). Anyway, the store is divided up into cubicles, and people put goods in a particular cubicle on consignment. When the product sells, the people who run the mall get a commission on the sale.
The cooperative model seems to me to be essential to the success of a local Oklahoma food system, and the "antique mall" concept seems to me to be easily adapted to the needs of a cooperative local food system.
One negative of selling at a farmer's market is that you have to be
there to sell. That means a full day's labor for one or more people must be devoted to selling the products. That increases overhead. If
a person with antiques to sell had to hire somebody to sell them, he or she would have to sell a lot more antiques than otherwise would be necessary just to cover their overhead expense. If people had to do this, it would hardly be economic for them to have an antique cubicle in a local cooperative antique mall.
It would thus be easier, at least in terms of labor, and thus also "cheaper", for a farmer to stock a cubicle in a cooperative Oklahoma food retail store than to devote a full day's labor to retail
marketing.
This thought process leads to the importance to consumers of convenience. As has been rightly pointed out to me on many occasions, not everybody is going to be willing (or able) to e.g. buy 50 pound bags
of peanuts, or an entire year's worth of wheat for flour. There is also a certain investment required for items like grain grinders, storage bins, etc.
A cooperative retail Oklahoma food store would make it possible for people to buy a week's worth of flour direct from farmers, instead of getting a whole year's worth in one chunk from the combine to the back of your truck.
A cooperative Oklahoma food retail store could have grain grinders on the premises and people could grind their own flour when they buy the
wheat. Or grind their own peanut butter, shell their peas, crack their pecans, etc.
It's the most old fashioned thing one can think of, a General Store
and Grocery. It would look like the predecessor of the modern supermarket. But instead of being controlled by a corporate bureaucracy, it is locally owned and operated. It could have a health department approved kitchen attached that producers could use to make retail products. Or customers could develop a line of Oklahoma food products using ingredients they are buying from farmers, and market them through the cooperative. It could also have nonfood items, like clothing or made in Oklahoma dry goods (look for http://www.oklahomaclothing.org after the first of the year), each product or product line presented by "cubicle entrepreneurs".
The basic overhead (rent and utilities) could be met
with some kind of a monthly membership fee, set low enough to be
doable, the fee being paid by the customers and the producers alike.
"Low enough" being in the range of $5 to $10. The same is true for the startup costs, which would be raised by a somewhat higher initial membership fee (maybe $20?). Get a credit union to open a counter at the store. Since the store could be set up for EBT cards, food stamps
and WIC coupons could be accepted which would be a great benefit for both consumers and the producers, ditto for credit and debit cards. Nonmembers wouldbe welcome, but would pay a bit more (say 5%) for the
products. This would thus be a "hybrid" coop. Most coops are either owned by producers OR by
consumers, our idea is to unite producers and consumers in one cooperative.
So that's the concept. If it sounds crazy, consider what WalMart has done with Sams. This would only work with a decent base of support among consumers and producers, and if we can find that (aren't there 1000 households in this city that could be interested in ths concept?), we can open this place, maybe more than one (Edmond and OKC come immediately to mind, also Norman).
And in the meantime, if you are "above average" interested in this, please contact me in private
email at rmwj@soonernet.com and/or join the yahoo discussion group I have started to explore
this concept at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/okfoodret/ . If you'd like to be involved with
getting this off the ground and into actuality, subscribe and join the conversation!
We have scheduled a series of meetings in all geographic areas of the state in February, March,
and April 2003 to discuss the proposal and elect members of a steering committee to organize the
cooperative. The meeting schedule is here. If there isn't a meeting in your area, and you would
like to organize one, please contact Robert Waldrop.
Robert Waldrop, Oklahoma City
405 557 0436
405 613 4688
|
|
