Food Co-op Planned for Ft. Greene/Clinton Hill?
According to The Brooklyn Paper today, a couple of Park Slope Food Co-op devotees are looking to open their own food co-op in Fort Greene or Clinton Hill. Kathryn Zarczynski, the Clinton Hill-based operator of the website guiltfreeshopping.com, and DK Holland, a Slope Co-op member who lives in Fort Greene, are frustrated with the lack…
According to The Brooklyn Paper today, a couple of Park Slope Food Co-op devotees are looking to open their own food co-op in Fort Greene or Clinton Hill. Kathryn Zarczynski, the Clinton Hill-based operator of the website guiltfreeshopping.com, and DK Holland, a Slope Co-op member who lives in Fort Greene, are frustrated with the lack of affordable or high-quality grocery stores in the area (Holland calls the Atlantic Center Pathmark a pit). The general manager of Park Slope’s Co-op, meanwhile, says there are hundreds of Clinton Hill/Fort Greene residents who use the Slope Co-op. Seems to us like Zarczynski and Holland’s idea would probably be a big success—does anyone know if it’s more than just talk and whether the duo has been scouting locations? Also, what would the impact on the Park Slope co-op be if a chunk of its members had an alternative on the other side of Flatbush?
A Food Co-op of Their Own? [Brooklyn Paper]
Photo by arimoore.
I have worked/shopped at the Park Slope Food Coop for 5 years while living in Clinton Hill and my experience there has beengreat! To me it’s not just the produce and the prices, but a chance to make a community committed to supporting local farmers and good food.
I believe that Clinton Hill/Ft. Greene could benefit greatly from a Co-op. While I’m glad to see local business like the Greene Grape expand, what we need is affordable sundries and produce not an upscale specialty store.
While there is money in the our neighborhood, its just not the same density of wealth you now find in park slope. In CH and FG retail rents are growing faster than the overall wealth in the neighborhood — there is a longstanding community here that is not as wealthy as all the newcomers. This coop should aim to serve the entire community. For any enterprise to succeed it will need either high prices or volume. I vote for volume.
Logistics are the key here, and to think that we could realize the savings that PS coop passes along without buying in bulk they way they can is optimistic at best. If FG/CH coop could form a buying partnership with the established PS coop, we could realize real buying and shipping efficiencies and piggyback on what they’ve learned over the years about organization. They do have great prices, organic prices that can BEAT the conventional prices in CH and FG. The real question is how do you get membership from everyone — creating an environment that is inviting to the whole neighborhood, and therefore a product mix that may have broader appeal.
Ultimately the grocery business is all about relationships and logistics. Its really hard to do well and price cheap. Having a committed minority won’t neccessarily guarantee success unless there is real knowledge and organization behind it. Reading all the negative comments about Fresh Direct you realize that a store only gets a few shots and then it loses customers — thats why whole foods does well, they know how to make it work. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, just make it a little better and push on.
So there are things people don’t like about the Park Slope Food coop – how can you change those things but pull in what is good.
And if you can’t piggyback on PS, what realistically can this store be? What realistically can the neighborhood support? With all these new stores coming in, is there still room for an enterprise like this? And truthfully, good produce is expensive – even on the wholesale market. The PS Co-op doesn’t always buy the ‘best’ produce but what is the ‘best’ after all? Their markups are low – and they’ve figured it out. They’ve done a great job – but its really hard – and something the group organizing really needs to consider.
I love the Park Slope Food Co-op and it would be fantastic to have one closer to home. I’m a member who lives in Fort Greene and I’m sick of making the trek on my bike or renting a Zipcar just for groceries. But it’s worth it.
The PSFC has a bad rep and I don’t think it’s deserved. Sure people can get overly concerned about the rules, but it’s all with the broader goal of keeping a good thing going. You wouldn’t believe how satisfying it is to shop with the knowledge that the prices are set only as high as they need to be to keep the place running.
The only problems I see with the PSFC are because it’s got too many members! The complaints here are that it’s too crowded, there aren’t enough shifts, there aren’t enough things to do on the shifts. It’s obviously in the interest of members and managers to help open one here for these reasons.
People love to bitch about it, but you just need to look at the increasing numbers to see why it’s worth joining. 12,500 Brooklynites can’t all be wrong about something that’s been thriving since 1973.
By the way, the biggest thing I was struck by after joining the co-op was just how diverse it is. Anyway writing it off as a bunch of tree-huggers hasn’t set foot in the place. It’s a cross-section of Brooklyn full of people who want good food and are willing to pitch in to get it.
Bring on the Fort Greene Food Co-Op and just watch how many people sign up (the people who don’t can just let it be).
Don’t you love how people can hate something that have never been part of? I think there’s a word for that…
Listen, Fort Greene (and Clinton Hill) is a perfect environment for this kind of collective. Yes, you can join for the savings (substantial). Yes, you can join for the community. But you get both at any rate. And you get neither at a conventional market.
PSFC is excited about us starting a coop. Tish James and our local community organizations are behind us. They all want to help. So if you are interested in helping out yourself, get on the team.
You can email me or Kathryn Zarczynski at thehill.editorial@gmail.com
We’re getting a lot of support. We especially want to hear now from Coop members who are interested in this effort.
DK Holland
I’m not hugging a tree and, despite the crowds (and because of the crowds sometimes!), I really like the coop!
Vive le Coop!
But 5:17 people do get to say why they don’t want to join the food co-op. We are part of the larger Park Slope and/or Brooklyn community, the food co-op and its members reside within that larger community, so the rest of us get to judge it and comment on it all we want. It is good to hear stories from the inside like 10:49’s comments, for those who are trying to figure out if they are a good fit for the co-op or not.
After years of waffling, I finally joined the PSFC in November. And quit in December. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t the work that ultimately did me in (even though I had only done one shift), or the self-righteous citizens of the People’s Republic of Organica. The place was too effing crowded. It was like shopping in Russia before the wall came down and if the crowds and the narrow aisles weren’t annoying enough, all the extra workers clogging the aisles stocking items made it impossible to navigate. I kept hearing about these secret pockets of time when it wasn’t crowded, but now believe that to be a bit of coop legend. Sort of like the fact that the prices are amazing or the produce is sooo wonderful. To be fair, I joined in the fall. Who knows what splendor would have awaited had I hung in till spring and summer. But the produce was pretty much eh. (they even had moldy strawberries, just like Key Foods!) The prices are good overall, but not good enough IMHO to put up with the workshift and the anxiety involved in shopping there. Some things are even more expensive there than other places. Gasp. I’m glad I did it because now I know. It’s a bit of a good thing, and a lot of hype. I think it was probably much better before people like me, who really don’t give too much of a crap about the plight of local farmers or whether my chestnuts are organic, were members. So I decided to do everyone a favor and get out of their way so they can maybe shop in peace.
As a member for 6 years, I fully agree with all the problems that the coop supposedly has. However much we want to quit (every 4 weeks if memory serves,) it’s still a great deal. You can’t get that quality of food except maybe in Union Market (twice the price) or Whole Foods (1-1/2 time the price, too difficult to get to … we don’t have a car.)
Most people don’t join for “community”, they join for price. And that’s ok.
While fully accepting the socialist, hippie, treehugging mantle (read my blog) it’s ridiculous that all you ranters can hate it so much. It’s just a food store, for chrissake! albeit run by the owners. If you don’t like it, ignore it please. I do (almost.)
It’s true, 3:50. Because Brooklyn has such terrible food markets, we get too impressed with places I’d have rejected in L.A. or Atlanta as not being good enough. It’s ridiculous. I also agree Fresh Direct sucks. We’ve tried them only a few times and in our last order, half the produce was rotting. No joke. It’s like, “Fresh” is in your name, you idiots. So we’ll order from them no more.
Business owners in Brooklyn are really really slow to take advantage of the new population of consumers here. I have no pity for any that go out of business. If big chains do better than the small ones who refused to keep growing and improving to serve the new residents then fine, bring on the big chains. Ozzies sucks. Disgustingly filthy, terrible slow service, and bad coffee. I’d rather Ozzies be a Starbucks anyday it’s so bad. I’ll say it. (Though my first choice would be for all Ozzies locations to become Gorilla coffee.) As for the co-op, it’s too cultish. Another form or organized religion. I’m just not a “joiner” that way. I support buying local and organic and all that, the idea of it being so political and a “membership” is a turnoff. The tone of the defenders of the co-op here was as self-righteous as I’d expect. Pass.