Part 3: Food

Laura May Abraham [Booker] and Food Co-ops – By Stephen Charak

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We had searched diligently for a place to go. Next we moved to the corner of Fifth Avenue and Jefferson downtown. There’s an empty lot at that corner now [in 1988]. There was a funky, old, two story dilapidated green apartment building on the corner and a woman real estate agent . . . showed us this apartment building. We asked if we could put a store there. She said, “You could do anything here. You could sell babies out the back door.” I never forgot that. 

Making Hay While the Sun Shines – By Joe Tougas

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Cold Comfort Farm took the “Farm” in its name seriously. We thought of ourselves on the model of agricultural co-ops. We wanted to be independent, creative, revolutionary. We were pretty smug about our agrarian accomplishments. Although our knowledge of small-scale farms was spotty and romanticized (not to mention borderline illegal) we were proud of our worn-out overalls and home-grown strawberries and broccoli.

Emma Goldman Joins the Co-op Movement – By Don Orr Martin

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Representatives from each household would meet weekly at a member’s house. We had product lists from the wholesale suppliers with whom we had previous ties and we would order items in bulk, purchasing only an amount we could completely divide up, keeping no inventory. We would bid on portions of wheels of cheese from Peterson’s in Seattle, crates of milk from Flett Dairy, sacks of oats and rice from Cooperating Community Grains, boxes of fruits and vegetables from Nisqually Valley Produce. These meetings were a little like the New York Stock Exchange: initial orders were compiled, then bids were taken to increase or decrease a family’s order until we reached a case lot.

The Launch of the Columbia Street Food Co-op – By Anna Schlecht

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Since this was the first year of operation, there wasn’t much history to go on. Process was something we made up as we went. No bosses and lots of opinions. As part of our emergent way of doing business, the early hiring decisions were done by a vote, and anyone interested in Co-op business could just show up at the meeting to vote. The night I was hired there were only two of us who wanted to become the second staffer.

Olympia Farmers Market – By Becky Liebman

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The early days presented a consummate catch-22 situation. Growers did not want to participate unless there were customers. Customers would not return if there wasn’t produce to buy. As manager, I considered myself a marketing genius: I would call numbers I found in the classified ads of the Daily Olympian with a pitch something like, “I see you’re selling cucumbers. Did you know we have a farmers market in Olympia, open every Friday and Saturday alongside Capitol Lake?” Slowly the word spread.