Transcript Staff
As it celebrates its third anniversary this month, the Oklahoma Food Cooperative has sold nearly $450,000 worth of Oklahoma-grown products, with local farmers receiving 95 percent of the proceeds.
The food co-op is an original, homegrown take on the cooperative concept, delivering only Oklahoma grown or processed food to customers around the state, according to the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture.
It has opened up statewide markets to individual farms and allowed members to purchase foods they cannot easily find on supermarket shelves.
"We're just trying to figure out how to produce good food and how to sell it," said farmer Kim Barker of Waynoka, who sells lamb and beef through the co-op. "The more people we can get doing that, the better."
During its first three years of operation, the co-op has had nearly 2,000 products in its inventory at one time or another.
Offerings include staple foods like meat, vegetables, and eggs, prepared or processed foods like cake and coffee, and even non-food items such as soaps and music CDs.
In October, there were about 1,300 different products for sale.
"The Oklahoma Food Cooperative is owned by its members -- producers of Oklahoma foods and the customers who want to buy from them," said Robert Waldrop of Oklahoma City, the co-op's president and founder.
The co-op treats farmers and customers as equals, and each pays a one-time fee of $50 to join. The co-op plays the role of an agent. It facilitates the ordering, delivery of and payment for Oklahoma foods between the two.
Customers order online once a month. Waldrop posts messages on the co-op list serve reminding members to order. In his newsy e-mails, he also describes new products, profiles farmers and shares recipes for dishes made with co-op products.
Later in the month, food travels from farms all over the state to a central distribution point at a church in Oklahoma City. There, members sort orders and route them out to pickup points in the Oklahoma City metro, as well as Norman, Stillwater, Checotah, Muskogee, Tahlequah,Tulsa, Waynoka/Enid and Weatherford/Clinton/Hobart/Cordell.
The co-op's success has surpassed all expectations.
When it ran the first order cycle, in November 2003, it had 36 orders, for a total of about $3,200 in sales.?
By October, the membership had surpassed 800, and monthly sales were between $22,000 and $24,000. The co-op has been almost entirely self-sustaining financially since the beginning.
That variety and the freshness of the products bring in customer members. "Once you've had a farm-fresh egg," one satisfied customer said, "grocery store eggs aren't even palatable."
Others are drawn to the co-op as a source of food security for themselves and their communities. "When I see all the chicken in the store coming from one company, I ask why," said longtime customer Kathy Tibbits of Stilwell. "The co-op idea was interesting to me because I saw that there was essentially a monopoly on retail food."
"I think we're losing something if we put all of our hopes in the industrial food system," she said. "What if the complex, transportation-dependent national way of doing things were disrupted?"
For many, other appealing aspects of the co-op are the health and environmental benefits of local, sustainably grown foods.?
The co-op does not permit products raised in confined-animal feeding operations, nor those including material from genetically modified crops. Foods fall into one of four categories -- certified organic, all natural, standard and commercial.
Each producer member has an individual product page on the co-op Web site with detailed product descriptions. Customers can select items produced in ways compatible with their own personal preferences.?
The co-op is good for both farm and rural economies, Kerr Center officials say. While farmers' share of the food dollar averages 19 cents nationwide, every dollar spent with the co-op sends 95 cents straight into the pocket of an Oklahoma farmer.
"With every meal," Waldrop said, "we are restoring and completing the 'circle of life,' re-weaving the relationships and connections that once united rural and urban Oklahomans."
While sustaining farms and increasing access to local food within Oklahoma, the co-op also has stimulated similar developments in neighboring states. It has hosted visitors from Arkansas, Colorado, Nebraska and Texas, and received inquiries from Missouri, New Mexico and even Washington.
Such a record of success may seem surprising to those who have never thought about the economic potential of local markets for locally grown food. But Waldrop takes it in stride, wrapping up his monthly e-mails with his trademark, "Y'all bon appetit, you hear!"
