Columinate members will be among the many presenters and trainers at the 2025 CCMA conference, to be held in Duluth, Minnesota, on May 29-31. They will join a few hundred co-op directors, managers, and key staff from a network of food co-ops and national allies. The CCMA conference, sponsored by UWCC, is a spirited and busy three days of challenging speakers, workshops, local tours, networking, award presentations, and a bang-up closing party.
In mid-April, National Co+op Grocers (NCG) released its “2024 Food Co-op Impact Report,” showing strong sales growth and continuing leadership by co-ops in local, organic, and Fair Trade product sales. Click here for a pdf of the full report. Same-store sales growth among NCG co-ops was a strong 4.7 percent, compared to overall US retail grocery sales growth of under 3 percent. (That was in a volatile and somewhat inflationary market. According to the federal Economic Research Service, 2024 food inflation was 2.3 percent.)
In proclaiming 2025 the International Year of Cooperatives, the United Nations and cooperatives worldwide are lifting up the tremendous social and economic achievements and potential of these democratic, community-based associations. In the US, the campaign is being led by National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) CLUSA, our apex trade association and an international development organization.
With a dozen of its members part of the program, Columinate will have a strong presence at the annual food co-op startup conference, Up & Coming, to be held in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on September 12–14. Up & Coming is a spirited event, with enthusiastic members of co-op startups from across the country mixing with veteran trainers and consultants.
Kevin Edberg and Cooperative Development Services: "We have been lucky to have Kevin and CDS in our corner all these years." Michelle Schry of National Co+op Grocers introduced the Cooperative Innovation Award and Kevin Edberg, who she described as the "longtime brain, backbone, and captain of Cooperative Development Services" (CDS). CDS is a nonprofit co-op development organization founded 38 years ago in Minnesota/Wisconsin, and it has had a profound impact for food co-ops and other ventures. What follows is edited from Schry's CCMA introduction:
Chris Maher, general manager of BriarPatch Food Co-op in California, won the 2024 Cooperative Service Award, presented at the Consumer Cooperative Management Association (CCMA) recent annual conference in Portland, Maine. This award goes to someone who has contributed outstanding and sustained work in consumer cooperatives. CCMA is presented by the UW-Madison Center for Cooperatives (UWCC) has served as an interdisciplinary teaching and research center for all sectors and types of cooperatives since 1962: https://uwcc.wisc.edu/
Community-owned grocery stores last year led all food retailers nationwide in percentage of sales derived from local, organic and fair-trade foods and products. In fact, the average food co-op grocery store on average sources products from 169 local farms and producers. Read the details on the vast and generous impact locally-owned food co-op grocery stores have on food systems in general and their local communities in particular. The report comes from National Co+op Grocers, which represents 161 food co-ops with 1.3 million U.S. member-owners and combined annual sales of $2.5 billion.
