Berkeley Food Co-ops foundation
From Foodcoop
[edit] Introduction
Berkeley Food Co-ops is a zero-profit foundation whose goals are to propagate new, worker food cooperatives and to correspond between existing organizations. We offer neighborhood co-ops start-up grants of equipment, food, technical assistance, and working examples.
The foundation was created in 2006 to back the new Bus Stop Food Co-op farmstand at Spiral Gardens, and since then we've helped start the Local at UC Berkeley. Our role has been to make critical initial gifts of equipment and food, and then, much more importantly, a few friends are putting love and disproportionately huge effort into keeping the food co-ops running while we attract enough people to share work evenly.
We have a library of essays, history, and how-to material. A catalogue of the library is published periodically.
[edit] How to start a workers' food co-op
To avoid overburdening each other, you will eventually want about 30 people who can do a monthly shift. You'll need to find a small area to set up market in, ideally the size of a typical bedroom. Some red tape is filed, preparations made and we're ready to set up the stand.
[edit] Do I need a co-op?
Would you rather walk to a store? It'll be many and long years until there are enough farmstands in town. Read an anticipated open letter to the I-House.
