Vancouver Voice Article 2011-02-02 February 2011

[Rory]

"Humble Start Ready to Grow" by Adam Stewart
Vancouver Voice, February 02, 2011
http://vanvoice.com/article?articleTitle=humble+start+ready+to+grow--1296716897--647--news


From the outside, 215 W 4th Street looks like an unassuming enough
hole-in-the-wall in downtown Vancouver. The inside doesn’t look like
much more: a small, sectioned-off warehouse that, close to the front,
is adorned with aluminum shelves stocked mom-and-pop style with
organic foods and household products, and a cooler packed with locally-
grown produce. Yet as volunteers are compiling orders made online and
being instructed in the steps to complete a given transaction, it
seems clear that this humble start is about to grow into something
more: a food cooperative for the farmers and consumers of Vancouver.

It’s already begun: products from the Vancouver Food Cooperative (VFC)
can be ordered on the co-op’s Web site, and orders can be picked up
from the 4th Street location on Tuesdays at selected times. Local
produce, how-to books, housewares, gardening and canning supplies and
organically manufactured food, medicine and personal care items are
among the healthy and environmentally-friendly items available. “We
don’t have a complete catalog right now,” said store manager Kendra
Pearce, “so anybody who’s looking for something in particular, I
really encourage to call or email to say, ‘This is what I’m looking
for.’ And then we could start adding those products or those sections
of the catalog.”

Vendor and VFC member Shawn Morrill is a volunteer for the store and
is busy organizing an online order for pickup. Morrill makes and sells
reusable produce bags called Real Food Bags and said that, upon
stumbling onto the VFC Web site, what he found appealing was “The fact
that it supports the local economy and local community. I like to eat
local as much as possible.”

“It’s really interesting to see how co-ops have evolved,” said Pearce.
“I’ve been able to visit several different co-ops and kind of see how
they’ve hung onto a lot of those concepts with their taking it to the
21st century as well.”

What is a co-op, anyway?

A cooperative is a non-profit organization that is owned by the
different parties involved, in this case the farmers, sellers and
consumers. “For many people, it’s a strong belief that we should have
control and ownership over our products and what comes to us,” said
Marj Casswell, current president of the board at the VFC. “And some of
the first co-ops were really modeled after the grange kind of
situation where there were cooperatives around farming or dairy so
that the farmers in a particular area would pool all their
resources.”

Interested parties pay a one-time fee of $180 (in installments, if
necessary) to become an owner. Benefits to owners include discounts on
goods and workshops, attendance at board meetings and members-only
events, voting and election rights and volunteer opportunities.

“Anything that is a business can be cooperatively owned,” Casswell
said. “Ace Hardware is a cooperative. They pool their buying power and
buy as a cooperative, and the stores are individually operated. It’s a
form of operation and ownership.”

Vendors currently selling through the VFC include Northwest Organic
Farms, Compass Coffee Roasters and Nature’s Wild Harvest. “We have a
great agrarian society here in Clark County, a great agrarian
history,” said Pearce, who said she adds a new vendor about every six
weeks. “Basically, I go to farmers markets or I go to outreach events.
I start talking to farmers and see what they have and see if they’re
interested in a . . . relationship, . . . see what we can do for them,
what they can do for us, so that we can be partners.” Pearce said the
VFC has its sights set on acquiring agreements with dairy and egg
farmers next.

“I’ll be out and about and one of [the farmers] will run into me and
say, ‘Well when are you going to start talking to me about putting my
stuff in your store?’” said Casswell. “There’s a lot of interest from
the farming community in having a place to bring their product. It’s
just such a fantastic match.”

From dreams to reality

The food co-op was originally conceived by Heather Lehman and Sunrise
O’Mahoney, students who met at Washington State University in
Vancouver. Their idea, however, only carried them so far into the co-
op’s development. “They wanted to do things with local food, and they
wanted a place to buy organic food,” said Casswell. “They had the
passion, but not the knowledge of how to make it happen.”

The co-op, like anything, had its complications getting off the
ground, which, according to Casswell, was due in part to clashing
egos. “The reason I decided to personally get involved was that I saw
those difficulties,” said Casswell, “and that there was a chance this
co-op would succeed. But there was some trouble, and that was
unfortunate. It’s . . . a clash of wills, people not listening, [and]
all that stuff that happens gets in the way of making good stuff
work.”

Casswell was ideal to take the project on, having worked with credit
unions and with co-ops since the 1970s, when she was in Albany, New
York. “We had big bins and chopped-off cheese and we can’t do that
anymore,” she said. “There are a lot more rules, a lot more
regulations. And peoples’ shopping habits [have] changed. There are so
many options that people have available now.”

Plans for the VFC include offering people not just a venue to buy and
sell organic foods, but also speaking, educational and cooking events.
“The possibilities are endless, what it could be,” said Casswell, “and
it really will be dependent on volunteer response and member response,
as well as community response.”

The VFC’s facility on 4th Street also offers an added convenience for
farmers of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA.) Instead of waiting
at drop-off points for their shareholders, now they can deposit their
baskets of products and produce at the VFC location.

“To make that easier for them,” said Pearce, “they’ll drop with us,
our volunteers will assist the shareholders, and that way it makes
less time for them, and we get some traffic into the store.”

Growing into the future

Casswell said while other organic food stores are available, the
spirit of competition is not in the VFC’s blood, and that there is
room in Vancouver for all kinds of buying options. Yet the VFC has its
advantages over health food stores like Whole Foods. “The very
interesting thing to me is that food co-ops have been doing much
better than Whole Foods,” said Casswell “We sell some of the same
things, but obviously we’re people oriented. Whole Foods is a profit-
making business and we’re not. Food cooperatives are not. So our
product tends to be less expensive.”

While the VFC is primarily an online store, a limited amount of shelf
items are available at the 4th Street location for browsing and
purchasing. “There’s excess produce from our local vendors, as well as
shelf staple things,” said Pearce “There’s extra bread, extra produce,
things you can come in and purchase, whether you are a member or
somebody from the public. And we do have people just drop in on
Tuesdays and purchase.

“The goal is still to have a fully functional grocery store as we
attain more members and attain more volunteers and are able to do
that. We’re definitely working towards that goal, getting closer than
before.”

“There are so many food things going on right now,” Casswell said. “I
think everybody’s kind of feeling each other out to make sure that we
can compliment one another, support one another and really create a
great food partnership. Farmers markets, CSAs, food education
programs . . . and the Vancouver Food Cooperative is just a component
of that entire picture. We can all fit into it. We just need to find
our spot.”

For now, the goods offered and information about the VFC can be found
at www.vancouverfood.coop.