Food Co-ops: Good Food and Good Prices

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Until that day, it looks like Weaver's Way will keep doing just fine on its own. The coop has just decided-by full membership vote this time-to move to a new store and double in size.

TAHLEOUAH FOODS CO-OP

Most food co-ops are not such prosperous, large-scale institutions as Sevenanda and Weaver's Way. Many serve smaller groups of people out of part-time storefronts. Take for instance the Tahlequah Foods Co-op. This Oklahoma operation is made up of a self-described "scratching to get by" membership . . . in a town so rural that bears occasionally stroll down Main Street.

Lance Hughes, a long-term member, describes how the co-op-after a couple of false starts-first got its own store . . . the abandoned Cherokee Supreme Court Building. "It was a beautiful old brick structure that we were able to use rent-free. We stayed there all summer, and our membership bloomed. But by that autumn - since the place had termites and its 15foothigh ceilings meant we'd be facing a whopping winter heating bill-we had to start looking for another location.

"We found a newer storefront that looked just fine, but the building had a $100-amonth rent bill ... and our members had voted not to move if it meant increasing expenses.

"Well, a few of us liked that new building a lot and figured that-at the rate we were growing-we'd soon have enough folks to pay the rent . . . so we went ahead and moved anyway. That was our biggest mistake. A lot of people resented being left out of the decision, and others didn't like shopping-or working-at the new location. So before long our prosperous 300-plus membership had dwindled to around 87. And we still had all the 'new' bills to pay! We damn near lost the whole co-op."

Today the Tahlequah Foods Co-op has moved to yet another storefront . . . this time a smaller, more practical building. And, rather than wearing out the dedication of volunteers by trying to keep the storefront operating all the time ("We've gone through members the way most coops go through food," Lance says), the store is only officially open when someone signs up to run it. Otherwise, if a person wants to shop, he or she simply gets the key (kept in a not-too-secret spot), opens the market, shops, writes out a bill, tallies it up, puts the payment in the cash drawer, locks up, and leaves.

The co-op's membership is once again growing, but slowly this time. "We're nickel-and-diming it here," admits Lance. "It's difficult-every month-to get the money to place a new food order. We have to wait until the co-op gets back the money it invested in the last shipment . . . and by that time the shelves are just about so bare nobody can shop here."

Volunteer help seems to be a marginal operation, as well. Only 10 to 15 of the 150 members earn the 15% worker's discount each month. "If you try to force people to participate," Lance says, "you just make them feel guilty . . . and before long they leave the co-op. Most folks around here work pretty hard just to get by. They have to worry about doing things for their own rather than the co-op's -survival."

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