Co-op News Round-Up 9/28

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

🌹National Co+op Grocers (NCG) announced that Michelle Schry has been promoted to Vice President, Member Success, a newly created position. Michelle has been with NCG since 2015 as a Strategic Development Director in NCG’s Central region. The new role will oversee the work of NCG’s Strategic Development, Business Expansion, Retail Operations, and Transformation teams.

🌹A campaign to support operations at the Detroit People's Food Co-op called Mframadan can be found here. The campaign will collect contributions until the end of November.

🌹Fair Trade Month will have a special event featuring Equal Exchange and more at the NoMa Farmer's Market in Washington DC on October 22nd.

🌹The Bethlehem Food Co-op in Pennsylvania announced it will open on Saturday December 5th. The store will open for preview days featuring local vendors before opening day.

🌹We want to appreciate some outstanding local reporting including this piece by Julie Mack on MLive that helped to inform our reporting this month on PFC Co-op in Kalamazoo, MI.

🌹The 10th annual Cooperative Impact conference is coming up in Washington, DC. The conference organizers, National Cooperative Business Association, recently announced their rebranding to "US Co-ops".

🌹Two long-standing food co-ops have announced campaigns to support expansions projects. TPSS Co-op in Takoma Park Maryland is looking to raise $2.4m to support a second location. Monadnock Co-op in New Hampshire has a campaign goal of $2.5m to support their new Jaffrey store.

🌹The West Chester Co-op in Pennsylvania opened its doors on August 21st. The co-op began organizing for this day back in 2015.

🌹And lastly, as always, we commend a piece from the Cooperative Grocer Magazine archives. This article by Dave Gutknecht from June 2014 describes the tensions inherent with trying to operate a mission-based business and serve all members of your community. Twelve years later, the tension very much still rings true.