Even as the economy bleeds jobs, the number of member-owned food co-ops is doubling - in this region and across the country.
Four established co-ops, Swarthmore (started in 1937, making it the oldest), Weavers Way in Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill, Mariposa, and Selene, in Media, are guiding the growth of Chester's Community Co-op, which opened in March, and four more planned co-ops, in Doylestown, Elkins Park, Kensington, and South Philadelphia.
Nationally, the raw numbers are relatively small - Stuart Reid of the Food Co-op Initiative cites 325 existing co-ops and 300 in various stages of starting - but each has hundreds, if not thousands, of members and many boast revenues in the millions.
About 25 of the projected start-ups are in the six states that make up the mid-Atlantic region, says Bob Noble, who heads the newly formed Mid-Atlantic Food Cooperative Alliance.
Co-ops, which have had their cyclic ups and downs since coming on the scene in the 1840s, may be on the upswing again, Reid says, because of the intense interest in eating food that is locally grown using environmentally friendly, sustainable methods. And there's evidence to support that claim.
But Craig Borowiak, a Haverford College assistant professor writing a book on co-ops, suggests with some irony that the dismal economy is spawning this positive development.
"People are alienated, people are anxious, people are suffering, people are hungry," Borowiak says. "And co-ops offer a mechanism to deal with some of those problems."
Instead of finger-pointing and blame, the principles of cooperation that bind food co-ops prompt members to look to one another for support.
"A food co-op," Borowiak says, "is a microcosm of democracy."
