Kelly Wiseman addresses the question: what do you do when the competition is planning to move in next door? At Bozeman Food Co-op, they decided to take a hard look at their operations and marketing to make sure they were meeting customer needs and injecting excitement into their store. “We looked at every angle of operations and asked, what could we possibly do to [...]
When natural and organic foods made their appearance in the grocery market over 20 years ago, most conventional grocery stores dabbled with selling them in their product lines. Fast forward to today, and now big box retailers, convenience stores and conventional grocers have taken a massive chunk of business from the natural food retailer market. In a market where Seven-Eleven sells seven times more [...]
This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below: Password:
Marilyn Scholl, Manager CDS Consulting Co-op Putney, VT We can apply some very basic psychological frameworks to our work in growing Participation to help us really understand how our members interact with their Cooperative. Marilyn Scholl tells us how.
Marilyn Scholl, of Columinate, (and not too proud to call herself the "designated co-op old fart") provides a succinct recap of the food co-op movement in the United States through history in order to glean lessons and learnings from the past. Scholl addresses the questions relevant to food cooperators in this new era of competition: How did we get here? Will we survive? The [...]
Brett Fairbairn, Fellow in Cooperative Thought & Ideas [bio] Centre for the Study of Cooperatives at University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, SK, Canada "Change is the new normal", says Professor Fairbairn. And it's up to us and our imaginations to stay on top of all this change. By considering cooperative ventures as both enterprises and associations, we can think about adapting nimbly to both [...]
Explore the history of the modern-day cooperative, delve into societal trends, gain understanding of the economic and religious forces at work and let Todd Wallace weave the pieces together for you in this riveting story-telling journey through cooperative history.
Guest Presenter: Rochelle Prunty, GM, River Valley Market, Northampton, MA Why is location so important? What site characteristics should you look for? When do you need a market study? When should you hire a professional to vet your location options? When should a group start looking for a site? (or is this timeline?)
Learning objectives: the Food Co-op 500 Development Model: Four Cornerstones in Three Stages how the four cornerstones can be developed through the start up process the importance, the sequence and the road map offered by the three stages Related links: Click here for article on the Four Cornerstones in Three Stages model Click here for information the Cooperative Principles
