 | |
| Type | Consumers' cooperative |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1995 |
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | Natural food |
| Members | 300 |
| Website | 4thstreetfoodcoop.org |
The 4th Street Food Co-op is a food cooperative located in New York City. The 4th Street Food Co-op runs a retail store at 58 East 4th Street, selling natural foods and household products. The co-op is member-owned and -operated, but open to the public, and focuses on offering locally grown organic, and ethically produced products.
The 4th Street Food Co-op is in the space formerly occupied by the Good Food Co-op that started in 1973 as a buying club and later opened a storefront, going out of business in 1992. In 1995 the Good Food Co-op was replaced by the 4th Street Food Co-op under the legal corporate name Good Harvest Cooperative, Incorporated.
The store offers a variety of items in bulk such as grains (spelt, corn meal, bulgur), dried beans, raw and roasted nuts. It also carries a variety of dairy-, wheat-, and gluten-free goods and organic cleaning products. [1]
The 4th Street Food Co-op is lower Manhattan's only food cooperative. [2]
Monthly meetings are held, open to all members, where working groups report on the state of the co-op and progress made towards projects and goals. Additionally, members may submit and vote on proposals such as reevaluating pricing and discounts, deciding marketing strategy, and organizing upcoming community and store events. Additionally, a large annual meeting is held to discuss major co-op decisions and review the past year.
There are several forms of membership, roughly divided into working and non-working. Working members can work 2.25 hours per week either in-store or as part of a working group and receive a 20% discount on all store purchases, or share such a membership for a 15% discount. The annual fee to be a working member is currently $48. Non-working members do not work, but pay a $60 annual membership fee for 8% off all purchases. [3]
Responsibilities in addition to staffing the store during opening hours are divided into 12 working groups, such as information systems, facilities maintenance, marketing, and an ethics committee.
A cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise". Cooperatives are democratically controlled by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors. Cooperatives may include:
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The retail format influences the consumer's store choice and addresses the consumer's expectations. At its most basic level, a retail format is a simple marketplace, that is; a location where goods and services are exchanged. In some parts of the world, the retail sector is still dominated by small family-run stores, but large retail chains are increasingly dominating the sector, because they can exert considerable buying power and pass on the savings in the form of lower prices. Many of these large retail chains also produce their own private labels which compete alongside manufacturer brands. Considerable consolidation of retail stores has changed the retail landscape, transferring power away from wholesalers and into the hands of the large retail chains.