UTAH’S BEST MUSEUM
24
MAY 10 – DEC 14
Utah Biennial
2011 2012 2013
Join us for an artist Q&A at 7:00 PM and opening reception for
Utah Biennial: Mondo Utah Friday, May 10, 2013 from 6 – 8 PM ADMISSION IS FREE
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www.utahmoca.org
May 2013
CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET
handful of Blue Diamond Almonds into your mouth? Is your car or house covered by Nationwide Insurance? Yep, they’re all co-ops, member-owned and operated. And did you ever shop at ZCMI, the Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution, Utah’s first co-op? Faced with the imminent completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, Brigham Young rounded up community and business leaders to organize a community-owned department store dedicated to supporting local manufacturing and sharing profits with the Mormon community. * Alan Stutz, currently acting chair of the Wasatch Cooperative Market’s board, has been involved with the organization since its inception five years ago. He came to Salt Lake City from California in 2007, and one of his first upon arriving was, “Where’s the grocery co-op?” Two years later, he and Salt Lake native Ben Gaddis jump-started the Wasatch Community Co-op, hoping to catch a spark with Wasatch Front residents. Member-ownership in the Co-op carries a one-time $300 price tag, although the group stresses that money is an investment, not a fee. It is technically a for-profit organization, and in a profitable year the by-laws require it to disburse a minimum of 20% of its profits to member-owners as dividends. How large a dividend a given member-owner receives depends on how much they shop at the market. Being member-owned, coops can be slow in developing, especially in areas unfamiliar with the concept of a co-op grocery market. It takes time to disseminate the idea and to convince people that it is indeed a good idea, even in tough economic times, to invest several hundred dollars in a market that can’t put food on your table today. And a coop can’t exist without the financial support of visionary founding member-owners. It takes at least five years, on average, for a co-op to get from the development phases to its grand opening. “You get out what you put in,” Stutz says of the group’s development efforts. He and a handful of new and potential member-owners were at a potluck dinner held by the Co-op. While the group can’t currently offer food on store shelves to its member-owners, it strives to cultivate community around food and local businesses: member-owners can show their Co-op member cards at several area storefronts and restaurants to receive a discount. Stutz and member-owner Alison Riley were seated at a kitchen table in the home of Barbara Pioli, the Co-op’s development coordinator. Riley, who’s never stepped foot in a co-op grocery store, listened intently as Stutz explained that “nonmember-owners will get the same off-the-shelf price as members, but the co-op will only pay out profits to member-owners. So there’s a direct incentive for co-op members to shop at the market.”
Continued:
FOOD AND COMMUNITY
* Perhaps it would be more accurate to say there will be an incentive when there’s a physical market to shop at. “That’s the number one question we’re asked: Where’s the store?” Stutz said, with a note of frustration. “I get the feeling from a lot of people that they’ll invest once the doors open.” The Co-op’s board members calculate they need to bring on 400 founding member-owners to complete a feasibility study that will help pinpoint potential locations for the 10,000square foot market they currently envision. They arrived at that store size on the advice of a consultant who emphasized that any smaller, and the store wouldn’t be able to service a community as large as Salt Lake’s. It’s understandably difficult for some new investors to put money into a store that doesn’t even exist, but at which they’ll be expecting to shop. Once a suitable location for the store has been pinpointed, board members expect the response will be, “That’s the perfect location,” or maybe, “It’s a little out of the way, but we could make it work.” * Food-buying clubs, run cooperatively, have been around Salt Lake City for decades. In the January 2004 CATALYST, we noted that there was a moratorium on forming new buying clubs in the valley because the distributor that supplied local coops also supplied Wild Oats (since purchased by Whole Foods) and did not wish to further impinge on the retailer’s market. Several food-related organizations in the Salt Lake Valley have “co-op” in their names. While these businesses may provide valuable services to the community and the producers they contract with, they do not adhere to the seven guiding principles that define a cooperative. Community supported agriculture (CSA) associations are sometimes mistaken for cooperatives, to, but they are not. Classic co-op grocery stores, such as the Boise Co-op, the Community Food Co-op in Bozeman, Montana, or the very successful Wheatsville Co-op in Austin, Texas, keep regular grocery store hours and offer a dependable year-round market for local goods and produce. * Stutz said he had expected the Wasatch Cooperative Market would have signed up enough member-owners to afford the feasibility study by now, four years into the group’s development phase. The good majority of the Co-op’s founding members reside in and around downtown Salt Lake, which is where Stutz says the market will in all likelihood be located. “People need to see a business plan,” argued Denise, another Co-op member-owner at the potluck dinner.
Classic co-ops are defined by their adherence to seven guiding principles:
• voluntary and open membership • democratic member control • member economic participation • autonomy and independence • education, training and information • cooperation among cooperatives • concern for community