Food Co-ops in America: Communities, Consumption, and Economic Democracy

by Anne Meis Knupfer

In recent years, American shoppers have become more conscious of their food choices and have increasingly turned to CSAs, farmers’ markets, organic foods in supermarkets, and to joining and forming new food co-ops. In fact, food co-ops have been a viable food source, as well as a means of collective and democratic ownership, for nearly 180 years. In Food Co-ops in America, Anne Meis Knupfer examines the economic and democratic ideals of food cooperatives. She shows readers what the histories of food co-ops can tell us about our rights as consumers, how we can practice democracy and community, and how we might do business differently. In the first history of food co-ops in the United States, Knupfer draws on newsletters, correspondence, newspaper coverage, and board meeting minutes, as well as visits to food co-ops around the country, where she listened to managers, board members, workers, and members. What possibilities for change―be they economic, political, environmental or social―might food co-ops offer to their members, communities, and the globalized world? Food co-ops have long advocated for consumer legislation, accurate product labeling, and environmental protection. Food co-ops have many constituents―members, workers, board members, local and even global producers―making the process of collective decision-making complex and often difficult. Even so, food co-ops offer us a viable alternative to corporate capitalism. In recent years, committed co-ops have expanded their social vision to improve access to healthy food for all by helping to establish food co-ops in poorer communities.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published May 10, 2013

Reviews

[bibliotekker Holman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this would cure insomnia, but it didn't. There is nothing boring about the surreal and sometimes physical "war" between Marxists championing the working class against bourgeois "hippie" values in the growing Twin Cities co-op movement of the 70s. A clash of the old and new counterculture, largely won by the latter as food co-ops exist today.

Growing up in farm country, I was surrounded by various co-ops and even worked for the local Farmers Union Co-op, better known as Cenex. The food co-op is an interesting experiment in democracy at the basic level of food that has seen various iterations through history. Unfortunately, food co-ops have not succeeded in empowering a broader segment of society, but the potential, like the ubiquitous farm co-ops, is there.

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

One minute we (consumers) seem to embrace the big supermarket chains and the various conveniences and benefits they purportedly bring us. The next minute we want everything local, ethical, traceable and more, err, "real". Yet if you didn't know better, based on reading many newspaper articles or seeing TV reports, this sort of local trade is a major revolution in the making. A new development.

It isn't. What do you think happened before the supermarkets started their great march forward…? This book looks at the changing demands of many American shoppers, tracking a greater awareness and demand for "local" produce where possible, tracing back the development of food cooperatives (co-ops) for nearly two centuries.

The book's focus is split into three main parts, food cooperatives before the Great Depression, the Great Depression-era and more post-war developments. From the beginning the author manages to bring out a lot of information into the open that the average consumer probably doesn't know of or has became blissfully ignorant about. We tend to think that recent generations "invented" or "discovered" ethical behaviour, a demand for accurate food labelling and contents and an aversion to bulk-produced factory-farmed foodstuffs. Yet this book notes that there was already criticism about food adulteration in the early 1900s, following with concerns about the growing industrialisation of food production.

This is a fairly hard-going, yet manageable, academic read but it balances the needs of academia and general interest reading well. It is thought-provoking without being blindsided by one particular viewpoint. The author expertly weaves together history, politics, sociology and many other subjects together to bring forth an interesting story that shows our so-called recently-discovered ethical concerns are not so new after all. Perhaps technology has just helped make the world become a little smaller and amplify many relatively isolated voices into a much larger, cohesive message.

This weighty tome also looks forward to avenues of possible change, whether they be economic, political, sociological or environmentally-led both on a national, regional and international level. The book doesn't pretend to have all the answers or a grand solution but it certainly helps set things into context and perspective and sows many seeds of thought into the reader's mind. As befitting an academic book of this kind, there is a mass of notes, bibliographic references and a very detailed index for those who need this sort of thing.

This won't be a book that finds a place on everybody's bookshelf yet it could be a book that everybody would benefit from reading at least a bit of!

Food Co-ops in America, written by Anne Meis Knupfer and published by Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801451140, 288 pages. Typical price: GBP19. YYYY.




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