Cooperatives

MODELS & BEST PRACTICES

Agri-Mark (Lawrence, MA)
www.agrimark.net/inside/about_index.php
This Northeastern co-op, owned by 1,450 dairy farmer families, was founded in 1917. It is best known for two of its labels, Cabot Creamery of Vermont and McCadam Cheese of New York. In 2002, the co-op had $550 million in sales and returned $6.8 million in patronage rebates to its members, working out to about $5,000 for a dairy farmer with 100 cows.

Alvarado Street Bakery (Rohnert Park, CA)
www.alvaradostreetbakery.com
Founded in 1981, this worker cooperative, with 67 employee-owners, produces natural wheat bread that is now sold at groceries across the United States.

AMAROK (Phoenix, AZ)
www.amarok.coop
Founded in 1996, AMAROK has rapidly grown to become a leading purchasing in the drywall industry, helping its independent business members obtain better group discount prices and thus more effectively compete against major home repair store chains.

CHS, Inc. (Inner Grove Heights, MN)
www.chsinc.com
Created in 1998 through the merger of Cenex and Harvest States, two agricultural co-ops whose roots go back to the period of the Great Depression, CHS is the country’s largest grain cooperative, with $10.9 billion in sales in 2004. In 2004, CHS returned $60 million in patronage rebates to its member-owners.

Colors (New York, NY)
www.colors-nyc.com
Located in New York City and started by former workers of a World Trade Center restaurant, COLORS is a worker cooperative where each of the worker-owners receives a share of the profits and supervises the running of the restaurant through an elected board. Each worker-owner earns a minimum of $13.50 an hour, far above the industry average.

Community Energy Cooperative (Chicago, IL)
www.energycooperative.org
The Community Energy Cooperative is a non-profit membership organization helping consumers and communities obtain the information and services they need to control energy costs. The Cooperative was founded in January 2000 by the Center for Neighborhood Technology.

Cooperative Home Care Associates (Bronx, NY)
www.chcany.org
Founded in 1985 to provide quality home care at living wages in the South Bronx of New York, Cooperative Home Care Association now anchors a national cooperative network yielding over $60 million a year in revenue and employing over 1,600 and is the largest worker cooperative in the United States.

Design Action Collective (Oakland, CA)
www.designaction.org
Spun off from the Inkworks Press Collective in 2003, Design Action Collective is an independent, collectively run, union shop that offers graphic design services to non-profit, grassroots and activist organizations.

The Energy Cooperative (Philadelphia, PA)
www.theenergyco-op.com
Started in 1979 as a spin off from Weavers Way Food Co-op by members who wanted to use the concept of "group buying power" to get lower prices on heating oil, the Energy Co-op has expanded to provide renewable electricity, heating oil, and bio-diesel. Their annual sales are just under $5 million.

*UPDATED*
Equal Exchange (West Bridgewater, MA)
www.equalexchange.coop
Founded in 1986 and owned and governed by 85 worker-owners, this for-profit Fair Trade coffee, tea and chocolate company is a worker-co-operative dedicated to partnering with farmer and consumer co-operatives as much as possible. It currently works with 40 small-scale farmer co-ops in 20 countries. A major portion of its $30 million in annual sales (2007) flow through hundreds of consumed-owned food co-operatives and non-profit Fair Trade shops nationwide.

Florida Natural Growers (Lake Wales, FL)
www.floridasnatural.com
Founded in 1933, this co-op has grown to have 1,100 farmer-owners whose orange groves cover 60,000 acres of land. Its products are distributed to supermarkets across the United States.

Inkworks Press Collective (Berkeley, CA)
www.inkworkspress.org
Inkworks formed in 1974 as a worker owned and managed union print shop. The worker cooperative specializes in providing high quality offset printing and offers discounts for peace and social justice organizations.

Inter Cooperative Council (Ann Arbor, MI)
www.icc.coop
This student-run and owned housing cooperative, founded in 1932, provides housing for over 600 students at the University of Michigan.

Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative
www.kiuc.coop
Founded in 2002, Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative is Hawaii’s first electric cooperative, providing electric power to Kauai’s 30,000 residents.

Kid’s Co-op (Las Vegas, NV)
www.kidscoop.org
Operating for over 20 years, Kid’s Co-op is a non-profit parent cooperative, in which parents work as teaching assistants, maintain the buildings and grounds, and organize fund-raisers. The co-op aims to enrich the lives of Las Vegas children and strengthen their families through developmentally appropriate preschool and kindergarten programs, through parent education and through community service.

Land O’Lakes (St. Paul, MN)
www.landolakesinc.com
Founded in 1921 and best known for its butter, Land O’Lakes has over 4,000 dairy farmer owners. In 2003, it had net sales of $6.3 billion and returned $24 million in patronage rebates to its member-owners.

Mid-Kansas Cooperative Association (Moundridge, KS)
www.mkcoop.com
Formed in 1965, today the Mid Kansas Cooperative Association is a full service farm cooperative offering a complete line of supplies and services for both farm and urban customers located in the central part of Kansas with over 5,000 members. In 2003, it had grain storage capacity of 19 million bushels and the co-op sold 12.5 million gallons of fuel.

Moscow Food Co-op (Moscow, ID)
www.moscowfoodcoop.com
Founded in 1973 as a volunteer-run co-op, the Moscow Food co-op has grown rapidly in recent years. From 1999 to 2004, sales more than doubled from $1.5 million to $3.5 million and the co-op’s floor space will more than double in the fall of 2005, when it moves into its new 15,000 square-foot space.

Open Harvest Natural Foods Cooperative Grocery (Lincoln, NE)
www.openharvest.com
Founded in 1975, this member-owned retail co-op has over 2,000 members. In its mission statement it sets forth its commitment to equitable employment practices, support of local producers, consumer education, and sustainable agricultural practices.

Park Slope Food Co-op (Brooklyn, NY)
http://foodcoop.com
The Park Slope Food Coop, located in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn was founded in 1973 by a small group of committed neighbors. Today the co-op has more than 12,000 members. Unlike many co-ops where paying a fee is sufficient to become a member, members at Park Slope must commit to doing a workshift (there are some exceptions to this work policy for hardship cases) every four weeks in exchange for a 20-40% savings on groceries. The co-op estimates that this form of work exchange means that members do 75% of all co-op labor.

Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI), (Summer, WA), www.rei.com/aboutrei/about_rei.html Founded by 21 mountain climbers in the Northwest in 1938, REI has grown to become the United States’ largest single consumer cooperative, with two million members.

Restaurant Opportunities Center-New York (New York, NY)
www.rocny.org
ROC-NY aims to develop worker-owned cooperative restaurants dedicated to food quality, service excellence and employee welfare. Its first restaurant, COLORS, opened for business in January 2006 and has approximately 50 employee-owners. The group ultimately hopes to extend the model of employee ownership to other restaurant ventures within the United States, integrating support for sustainable agriculture and local producers as key business principles.

Sevananda Natural Foods Market (Atlanta, GA)
www.sevananda.coop
For thirty years, Sevananda has provided natural foods to Atlanta residents. It converted from a non-profit corporation to a cooperative in the 1990s in order to raise equity from customers. Today, it is the largest community food co-op in the southeastern United States.

Team Works (Los Altos, CA)
www.teamworks.coop
Founded in 2004, TeamWorks is a worker-owned cooperative business. Every permanent worker in the company is an owner-member with a financial stake in the business' success and its decision-making. TeamWorks consists of two business, one of which provides house cleaning and concierge services on the San Francisco peninsula while the other provides business support services and is involved in starting new TeamWorks sites.

Tennessee Farmers Cooperative (LaVergne, TN) www.ourcoop.com/main/about.asp
Tennessee Farmers Co-op includes Tennessee Farmers Cooperative (TFC) and the 65 member co-ops that own TFC. The group is also supported by interregional farm supply and research organizations of which TFC is a member owner. 70,000 farmers are members of the local co-ops in their home counties. Some 150 co-op retail outlets, which operate in 85 of Tennessee's 95 counties, serve more than half a million customers across the state.

Texas Electric Cooperatives, Inc. (Austin, TX)
www.texas-ec.org
The state of Texas has the nation’s largest network of electric cooperatives, providing electric power to nearly three million customers.

VHA Inc. (Irving, TX)
www.vha.com
In 2003, this non-profit hospital member-owned purchasing cooperative negotiated supply agreements valued in excess of $20 billion on behalf of its members, helping member non-profit hospitals more effectively compete against for-profit chain hospitals.

Weaver Street Market (Carrboro, NC)
www.weaverstreetmarket.com
Weaver Street is a food co-op that combines employee and consumer membership, with each group electing representatives to the co-op’s Board of Directors. Currently, Weaver Street has 70 worker-owners and 8,000 consumer-owners. The co-op has expanded greatly in recent years, adding a second storefront and a restaurant operation. It has also supported the development of a housing co-op and serves as the site of many broadcasts of the new local community radio co-op.

Western Farmers Electric Cooperative (Anadarko. OK)
www.wfec.com
Founded in 1941, this electricity generation and transmission cooperative supplies 19 member distribution cooperatives and others with electric power, meeting the electricity needs of residents and businesses in more than two-thirds of rural Oklahoma. Total operating revenues in 2003 exceeded $250 million with a net margin of over $9 million.

Wheatsville Food Co-op (Austin, TX)
www.wheatsville.coop
Founded in 1976, Wheatsville has grown into the most successful food co-op in Texas, with annual sales of $5.8 million and more than 5000 members. Wheatsville’s sales per square foot are more than double that of conventional supermarkets, which has generated a co-op management proposal to build out and expand store space by more than 50% in 2006.

Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security (Oakland, CA)
www.wagescooperatives.org
Founded in 1995, WAGES is a non-profit organization that raises start-up capital and provides technical assistance to promote economic and social wellbeing of low-income women through cooperative business ownership. WAGES’ efforts have led to the development of three women-owned environmentally sound housecleaning cooperatives in the San Francisco Bay Area.