Co-op News Round-Up 5/18

All the co-op news that's fit to print, May edition

🌹The Food Co-op Initiative (FCI) has posted videos from their FCI Live series on their YouTube channel. FCI live covers a variety of topics for food co-ops of any age and size.

🌹 National Co+op Grocers (NCG) released their annual Food Co-op Impact Report for 2025. Highlights included food co-op sales growth in 2025 that outpaced conventional grocery, and over $20m donated to community causes between NCG member co-ops.

🌹The Placerville Food Co-op in Northern California completed a successful fundraising campaign to buy their building. General Manager Jacob Mingle said in a post "This monumental and historical moment will add organizational wealth and stability to our food co-op and community for many years to come."

🌹Salt Lake City's first food co-op, Wasatch Food Co-op is opening this week on May 20th. The 6500 square foot store is located in the Liberty Wells neighborhood of the city.

🌹General Manager Jan Rasikas announced her retirement from Viroqua Food Co-op in Wisconsin after 27 years. Rasikas plans to work through October 2026.

🌹The Caledonia Food Co-op in St Johnsbury, Vermont announced the hiring of General Manager Amanda Gangell. Caledonia plans to open June 24th.

🌹The application is live for the 12th Annual Co-op Innovation Award through Capital Impact Partners. Applications are due June 12th.

🌹The National Co+op Grocers announced the addition of two new member co-ops. Fare Share Food Co-op in Norway, ME and Green Hill Food Co-op in Brooklyn, NY were admitted this month.

🌹Medford Food Co-op in Oregon announced the purchase of a property for their expansion project. Once the new 12,000 square foot store is ready, Medford will close the current location and move to the new one.

🌹Pennsylvania startup Bethlehem Co-op Market is raising funds ahead of their opening. Bethlehem began their startup journey in 2011.

🌹And as always, we commend an article from the Cooperative Grocer Magazine archives. Ahead of traveling to Tacoma, check out this article from 2016 about CCMA by Dave Gutknecht. It lists the themes of previous CCMA conferences, some of which are quite epic.