Food conspiracy

Food conspiracy is a term that described various organizing efforts in the early 1970s among neighbors who pooled resources to purchase food directly from farmers and small distributors. In the San Francisco Bay Area, for instance, a collective of like-minded individuals would establish a phone list, create a list of available goods, members would volunteer for tasks such as taking phone orders and tallying the list on Friday evening, shopping at the farmers market early Saturday morning and hosting the pick up spot in a basement or garage locally. There was also a quarterly dry goods distribution. The produce was supplemented by eggs and dairy products from small distributors.

Some food conspiracies went on to become cooperative stationary organic and bulk food distributors.

The term "food conspiracy" has since been copyrighted by the Food Conspiracy, a Tucson, Arizona food co-op which was started in 1970 as a once-a-week members-only distribution site like most other FCs across the country, and later became (and still is) a full-service food market open to the public and run on membership cooperative principles.

The Food Conspiracy Co-op is no longer a not-for-profit business. It still has a membership option available, but with negligible benefits. It no longer adheres to a cooperative business structure.Fact|date=February 2008

NOTE: Whomever wrote the above paragraph sounds disgruntled and appears not to have done their homework.

The Food Conspiracy Co-op website still lists it as a not-for-profit business. Partial membership benefits are as follows and are anything but negligible:

Vote on co-op policies and in elections.Buy member-owner only and Basic Buys sale items.Volunteer in the store or at Co-op events, and earn up to a 10% discount).Receive a free subscription to the Co-op’s newsletter.Receive a rebate check based on the amount of purchases bought.Receive discounts at businesses in the Co-op Network Discount Program.

NOTE: Whomever wrote the above paragraphs is clearly lobbying for their own interests, and seems not willing to completely divulge the facts.

The Co-op newsletter is entirely free, not only to members, but also to anybody who happens to wander into the store, regardless of their business there.The promised rebate check is a dubious proposition. The Co-op is currently embroiled in expansion/movement plans, into which it is sinking the majority of its money. The rebate check is contingent on profits earned, which don't seem likely to be substantial.That closing parenthese after the 10% discount claim was entirely unnecessary, I mean come on.

Also, I once saw the General Manager kick a dog.

Further reading

*Food Conspiracy Cookbook SF: 101 Productions, 1974.
*"San Francisco Chronicle", March 8 2000. Food Section

External links

* [http://foodconspiracy.org Food Conspiracy (Tucson) web site]