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What started as an idea in Christmas 2019 to give back has developed into a UK-wide movement of self-organised community food co-ops.
Cooperation Town is a network of self-organised community food distribution outlets. It started in London, and there are now 18 co-ops across the UK.
Food co-ops are part of the cooperative movement, which means that they follow the seven cooperative principles. Unlike a food bank, where recipients are means tested and have no say in how the service is run, they are owned by their members, who decide together what to buy and how to run the co-op.
They are like neighbourhood groups, explains Shiri Shalmy, 28, its founder and organiser. “By buying items in bulk and with the addition of surplus food from shops and supermarkets, members reduce the costs of their weekly shopping by up to 40%,” she explains. “Co-op members develop community organising skills, which build stronger and more resilient neighbourhoods.”
Over the past year the Cooperation Town network grew beyond Shiri’s expectations, with new groups asking to join every month, she says. “To meet the demand, we need to scale up our operations.”
“We are building a new hub for our network, which will increase our capacity and help reduce costs even further,” explains Shiri. “It will be a small warehouse of food staples for our co-op, as well as a space for our members to come together, learn, socialise and organise.”
To do this, they need to invest in our infrastructure. “We moved to a bigger space and secured funding for a Logistics Coordinator who will start in the new year,” she says. “We are looking for additional funds to kit out our hub with storage units, trolleys, scales and crates and to source a stock management system.
“We set our fundraiser target at £2,000, which will cover the bare minimum. Any additional funds raised will go towards making the new space more accessible to members and the wider community.”
The new hub will enable them to meet their target of supporting 40 new co-ops in the coming year, which is around 3,000 people living on low or no income and who are struggling with their living costs, including many children and young people.
“Bringing down costs enables families to spend more time together and neighbours to organise locally, beyond food,” says Shiri. “Our members tell us that, beyond having access to better nutrition, they also feel more confident, less lonely and more engaged in their communities.”
Help support the crowdfunder by donating on JustGiving. Find out more and support Cooperation Town on its website.
Could you make this happen in your community? Be part of the change. Or, if you, or someone you know, has launched a crowdfunding social enterprise project, email [email protected].
