Prefigurative Community Building (Part 4)
Growing Power With: How to Start a Democratic Food Co-op Without Power Over
In an age of skyrocketing grocery costs, exploitative food systems, and corporate consolidation, the food we eat has never been more political. But there's a way to fight back that doesn’t rely on protest or policy alone. It starts with something ordinary: shopping for food, and changing how we do it together.
A food co-op is a democratically-run, community-owned grocery store. It's more than just a store; it’s a self-organized resistance cell to corporate food systems. Unlike supermarkets driven by profit, food co-ops are driven by people. They center transparency, ecological sustainability, community resilience, and shared decision-making.
Starting a food co-op in your area isn’t easy, but it’s completely possible, and powerful when done right. When done with a Power With approach, it becomes a place not only for food, but for practicing collective agency and building an economy beyond capital.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating a food co-op that avoids Power Over dynamics, and instead grows with consent, mutuality, and care.
Step-by-Step Guide: Starting a Power With Food Co-op
Step 1: Gather a Core Circle (3–6 people)
Start small. A food co-op should emerge from relationship, not recruitment.
Invite people you already trust.
Make shared values explicit. Avoid rushing into action.
Center horizontal coordination from the beginning. No leaders. Facilitate in turns.
Resource:
Seeds for Change – Consensus Handbook
AORTA's Facilitation Toolkit
Step 2: Define Your Intention Together
Before money, before products, define the why. Write a short shared intention that answers:
What are we resisting?
What are we cultivating?
How will we make decisions together?
How do we want to feel when we enter the co-op?
Avoid focusing on competition or efficiency. Focus on needs and relationships.
Exercise: Write a collective “Why We’re Doing This” statement together using rounds or collaborative writing.
Step 3: Learn from What Already Exists
Don’t reinvent the wheel, learn from those who came before. Reach out to:
Other co-ops in your region.
Farmers’ markets, bulk-buy clubs, and mutual aid groups.
Local food justice activists.
Ask what worked and what didn’t. Learn from failure as much as success.
Resource:
Co-op Directory Service – Find food co-ops across the U.S.
Democracy at Work Institute – Resources on cooperative development
Step 4: Start Small With a Buying Club
You don’t need a storefront to start a co-op. Begin as a bulk-buying club:
Members pool funds to order food together (e.g. grains, fresh produce, dry goods).
Choose from ethical suppliers or local farms.
Distribute orders from someone’s garage, porch, or a community center.
This is the testing ground for governance and shared labor.
Tip: Use open-source tools for organizing:
Loomio for collaborative decision-making
Open Food Network for ethical food distribution
Step 5: Build Shared Infrastructure Together
Once you’ve practiced small-scale coordination, gradually develop infrastructure:
Use a non-hierarchical structure (sociocracy, consensus, or modified circles)
Rotate logistics roles (ordering, pickup, communication)
Decide collectively on markup policies, member responsibilities, and pricing equity
Make all financials open and visible to members
If you choose to incorporate:
Use a co-op legal structure that mandates democratic governance
Avoid traditional LLC or nonprofit structures unless they can be modified
Resource:
US Federation of Worker Cooperatives – Start a Co-op Toolkit
Sustainable Economies Law Center – Legal resources for food justice and co-ops
Step 6: Expand Participation Without Centralizing Power
As more members join, resist the urge to professionalize or centralize control.
Use onboarding rituals to pass on culture and values
Create opt-in roles and ensure role flexibility
Encourage members to step back and rest without guilt
Add layers horizontally, not vertically.
Conflict Culture Tip: Develop a shared process for working through disagreements. Use tools like “Restorative Circles” or “Conflict Mapping” instead of mediation or enforcement.
Resource:
The Restorative Practices Handbook
Step 7: Stay Rooted in Place
Let the co-op be a mirror of its community.
Stock culturally relevant and locally grown foods.
Accept food stamps (EBT) and sliding scale memberships.
Invite neighborhood feedback regularly—not performatively, but with intention.
Partner with:
Mutual aid groups
Urban farms and land trusts
Schools and tenants’ unions
Your co-op should be one thread in a larger tapestry of resistance.
Existing Projects That Embody Power With
People's Food Co-op (Portland, OR)
A democratically-run grocery store focusing on ethical sourcing, local products, and deep community ties. It uses consensus decision-making and active member participation to avoid corporate control.
ChiFresh Kitchen (Chicago, IL)
A worker-owned food cooperative launched by formerly incarcerated women, ChiFresh prepares healthy meals for underserved communities. It emphasizes collective ownership and operates within a food justice and prison abolition framework.
Why It Matters
Food is foundational to resistance because it is the most immediate and universal site of dependence, and therefore, of power. Every system of domination, from colonialism to capitalism, has begun by controlling food: who grows it, who accesses it, who profits from it. To reclaim food is to reclaim life itself. It’s how we nourish our bodies, our communities, and our futures. When we grow, share, and distribute food outside the logic of profit and hierarchy, we interrupt the cycle of extraction and create living alternatives. Food becomes more than sustenance, it becomes a tool for organizing, a signal of autonomy, and a seed of the world to come.
A food co-op isn’t just about food. It’s about reclaiming the capacity to coordinate our needs without domination. It’s about practicing shared responsibility, distributing power, and weaving trust into daily life.
When you build a food co-op rooted in Power With, you’re not just feeding people, you’re undoing the logic of extraction, enclosure, and hierarchy. You’re enacting the world you want to live in, meal by meal.
Start with a question: Who around you might want to share this journey?
Then meet. Then dream. Then buy beans in bulk.
Revolution doesn’t only need a megaphone. Sometimes it sounds like a box of apples being shared across a kitchen table.