With Debbie Clarke of the Unicorn Grocery.
Highlights:
- Our guide to starting a co-op grocery is on the website – it’s called ‘Grow your own Grocery’ so if you get onto our website and and search for that that would be a great place to start. It’s free and there’s loads of information in there; then having digested all that which might take a while get in touch with us if you’ve got other questions.
- Our advice would be to really think about whether you want to be a grocer, because at the end of the day that is what we are. I mean it’s it’s more than that because we’re co-operators, but essentially you have to like food and like customer service, because that’s the trade.
- We have really nice relationships with a lot of the other wholefood worker coops in the UK, and the wholefood wholesalers as well, like Suma and Essential and Infinity.
- Co-ops are loved by the left, but they can also be cherished by the right in a sense because they’re about people doing it for themselves and I think there have been moves from the government to be more flexible about the way coops and mutuals might be able to get involved in the provision of public services.
Links:
Grow your own grocery How-to
Suma
Essential
Infinity
Non-Corporate
Transcript on LowImpact.org.