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 enterprise". Cooperatives are democratically owned by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors. Cooperatives may include:
CARE is a major international humanitarian agency delivering emergency relief and long-term international development projects. Founded in 1945, CARE is nonsectarian, impartial, and non-governmental. It is one of the largest and oldest humanitarian aid organizations focused on fighting global poverty. In 2019, CARE reported working in 104 countries, supporting 1,349 poverty-fighting projects and humanitarian aid projects, and reaching over 92.3 million people directly and 433.3 million people indirectly.
Agribusiness refers to the enterprises, the industry, the system, and the field of study of the interrelated and interdependent value chains in agriculture and bio-economy. The primary goal of agribusiness is to maximize profit while sustainably satisfying the needs of consumers for products related to natural resources such as biotechnology, farms, food, forestry, fisheries, fuel, and fiber — usually with the exclusion of non-renewable resources such as mining.
Wakefern Food Corporation, founded in 1946 and based in Keasbey, New Jersey, U.S., is the 74th largest private non-governmental company in the world, the largest retailers' cooperative group of supermarkets, and the fourth-largest cooperative of any kind in the United States, and the largest private employer in New Jersey in 2017. As of 2020, Wakefern has fifty-one member companies who own and operate 359 supermarkets, under the brands of ShopRite, Price Rite Marketplace, The Fresh Grocer, Dearborn Market, Gourmet Garage, and Fairway Market in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
Tnuva, or Tenuvah, is an Israeli food creation and marketing company. The company holds in Israel a significant market share in the field of drinking milk production, dairy products and its marketing. It was for its first seventy years an Israeli food processing cooperative (co-op) owned by the kibbutzim and moshavim, and historically specializing in milk and dairy products; it was subsequently sold by its members as a limited company and, since 2014, has been controlled by a Chinese state company, Bright Food. Tnuva is the largest food manufacturer in Israel; its sales account for 70% of the country's dairy market as well as sales of meat, eggs and packaged food.
Key Food Stores Co-op, Inc. is a cooperative of independently owned supermarkets, founded in Brooklyn, New York, on April 20, 1937. Its stores are found in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida. The headquarters for the Key Food cooperative is in Matawan, New Jersey; the Chief Executive is Dean Janeway. The cooperative also operates stores under the Key Food Marketplace, Key Fresh & Natural, Food Dynasty, Urban Market, Food World, Food Universe Marketplace, SuperFresh, and The Food Emporium banners.
A pack hunter or social predator is a predatory animal which hunts its prey by working together with other members of its species. Normally animals hunting in this way are closely related, and with the exceptions of chimpanzees where only males normally hunt, all individuals in a family group contribute to hunting. When hunting cooperation is across two or more species, the broader term cooperative hunting is commonly used.
The Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC) is a student housing cooperative serving primarily UC Berkeley students, but open to any full-time post-secondary student. The BSC houses and/or feeds over 1,300 students in 17 houses and three apartment buildings. Food is provided to residents of the 17 houses, which also offer boarding meal plans to non-residents. Residents of the houses are expected to perform workshifts, typically five hours per week, as part of their rental agreement. The BSC is led by a board of directors which is primarily composed of and elected by, student members.
An agricultural cooperative, also known as a farmers' co-op, is a cooperative in which farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activity.
Foodtown is a northeastern United States supermarket cooperative founded in 1955 by Twin County Grocers in New Jersey. Currently, there are 66 Foodtown stores in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and eastern Pennsylvania. Foodtown's corporate offices are located in Iselin, New Jersey.
A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically which aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of their members. They operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a form of mutual aid, oriented toward service rather than pecuniary profit. Consumers' cooperatives often take the form of retail outlets owned and operated by their consumers, such as food co-ops. However, there are many types of consumers' cooperatives, operating in areas such as health care, insurance, housing, utilities and personal finance.
Dairy Farmers of America Inc. (DFA) is a national milk marketing cooperative in the United States. It is owned by and serves more than 13,000 dairy farmer-members representing more than 7,500 dairy farms in 47 states. DFA markets members' raw milk and sells milk and derivative products to wholesale buyers both domestically and abroad. Net sales in 2016 were $13.5 billion, representing about 22 percent of raw milk production in the United States.
A food cooperative or food co-op is a food distribution outlet organized as a cooperative, rather than a private or public company. Food cooperatives are usually consumer cooperatives, where the decisions regarding the production and distribution of its food are chosen by its members. Like all cooperatives, food cooperatives are often based on the 7 Rochdale Principles, and they typically offer natural foods. Since decisions about how to run a cooperative are not made by outside shareholders, cooperatives often exhibit a higher degree of social responsibility than their corporate analogues.
Cooperative federalism is a school of thought in the field of cooperative economics. Historically, its proponents have included J.T.W. Mitchell, Charles Gide, Paul Lambert, and Beatrice Webb. Many cooperative federations do not endorse cooperative federalism.
The history of the cooperative movement concerns the origins and history of cooperatives across the world. Although cooperative arrangements, such as mutual insurance, and principles of cooperation existed long before, the cooperative movement began with the application of cooperative principles to business organization.
PCC Community Markets is a food cooperative based in Seattle, Washington. With over 58,000 members, it is the largest consumer-owned food cooperative in the United States. Both members and non-members may shop at the retail locations, but members receive certain discounts. The organization currently operates fifteen retail locations. Eight of the fifteen stores are located in Seattle. The West Seattle location reopened on October 2, 2019. The other seven are located in Issaquah, Kirkland, Burien, Bothell, Redmond, Edmonds and Bellevue.
The Berkeley Student Food Collective (BSFC) is a collectively operated non-profit grocery market founded by students of the University of California, Berkeley near the Berkeley campus. The market aims to expand student access to as many organic, locally sourced, fair trade and whole foods as possible. It also aims to educate the community about the food system and its environmental, social and political impacts. It opened its doors in 2010, after having won a $91,000 grant from UC Berkeley's The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF). The collective serves a selection of produce, refrigerated and packaged goods, as well as a weekly subscription-style produce box that contains local, seasonal produce. The storefront is located across the street from the university, on Bancroft Way.
Awadeya Mahmoud a Sudanese and the founder and chairwoman of the Women's Food and Tea Sellers' Cooperative and the Women's Multi-Purpose Cooperative for Khartoum state, Sudan. On 28 March 2016, the United States Department of State announced her as one of the recipients of the International Women of Courage Award for that year.