Co-ops in the news

NCG Releases Latest Food Co-op Impact Report

National Co+op Grocers released its 2020 Food Co-op Impact Report, a comprehensive look at how retail food co-ops support local communities and economies. The 2020 report found:

• With 22% of sales coming from food supplied by local farmers and producers, food coops kept shelves stocked during pandemic shopping surges, while also supporting farmers impacted by the shutdown of food service outlets.

• A focus on affordability meant that customers saved an average of 25% on more than 2,000 food items.

• $7.3 million was donated to local organizations.

About NCG

National Co+op Grocers (NCG) is a business services cooperative for retail food co-ops located throughout the United States. NCG helps unify food co-ops in order to optimize operational and marketing resources, strengthen purchasing power and ultimately offer more value to food co-op owners and shoppers everywhere. With 147 member co-ops operating more than 200 stores in 38 states , NCG members have combined annual sales over $2.3 billion. NCG is a winner of the dotCoop Global Awards for Cooperative Excellence and a Certified B Corporation. Find a map of NCG member co-ops. To learn more about co-ops, visit www.welcometothetable.coop.

Check out the new Oral History of UHAB

The history of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) is the subject for a new podcast produced by the Interference Archive.

Founded in 1973 during New York City's economic crisis, UHAB helps residents without stable housing reclaim abandoned buildings and rehabilitate those building as their homes. Under Andrew Reicher's leadership, New York City's low-income resident-run and resident-owned housing cooperatives have grown from several dozen to more than 1,300 building, providing homeownership and permanent affordability to more than 30,000 households, most of them small building redeemed from abandonment.

Remembering Elizabeth Valoma, co-founder of The Cheese Board Collective

Elizabeth Valoma, co-founder of The Cheese Board in Berkeley, CA was a pioneer in the establishment of worker-owned businesses in the Bay Area when she and her partner sold their specialty cheese store to their employees in 1971. Elizabeth died last week at the age of 91.

The Cheese Board Collective played a key role in the establishment of other worker-owned businesses that now comprise the Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives. Elizabeth continued to work two shifts a week at The Cheese Board through her 80s.