A Retail Cooperative Sustaining the Community and the Economy

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Wheatsville Food Co-op is the only independent retail food cooperative in Texas. Back in the ’70s, processed foods were dominating the marketplace, and fresh, natural options had become very difficult to find. In protest, a group of like-minded Austinites joined forces and opened Wheatsville in an attempt to make healthy, unprocessed foods available to the community. 44 Years later, Wheatsville is thriving. The co-op sells local produce, fresh, organic food items, high-quality pantry staples, deli items, and humanely raised meats, amongst other things. They’ve become especially renowned amongst the community and travelers alike for exclusive items such as their homemade soups and sandwiches, vegan donuts (how long do donuts last?), and popcorn (how long does popcorn last?) tofu. What began as a community-run grocery store in 1976, today has over 24,000 invested members.

What Makes Wheatsville So Unique? And What, Exactly, is A Co-op?

A cooperative is an enterprise owned, and democratically organized and run, by its members - allowing people to work together to build a better world. The goal is to foster a sustainable enterprise that will provide long-term jobs and prosperity in the community. They support local artisans, farmers, and agriculture in the area. A list of local vendors can be found on Wheatsville's website.

Cooperatives operate on a set of 7 principles.  These principles reflect the fact that co-ops are driven by values, not only by profits. The principles are; Voluntary and Open Membership, Democratic Member Control, Members’ Economic Participation, Autonomy and Independence, Education and Training, Cooperation among Cooperatives, and Concern for Community.

These principles are echoed by Wheatsville Food Co-op’s Mission Statement:

The purpose of Wheatsville Co-op is to create a self-reliant, self-empowering community of people that will grow and promote a transformation of society toward cooperation, justice, and non-exploitation. The mission of Wheatsville Co-op is to serve a broad range of people by providing them goods and services, using efficient methods that avoid manipulation of the consumers and minimize exploitation of the producers or damage to the environment. The primary focus for this mission is supplying high-quality food and non-doctrinaire information about food to people in Austin, Texas.

True to Their Word

There are over 2000 local items and 80% organic produce items available at Wheatsville Food Co-op at any given time. In 2019 Wheatsville raised an impressive $194.443 for Austin non-profits and community groups! They raise funds every year for charities and non-profits that are selected via a nomination process and voted for by its members. The process is transparent and all details are made available on their website. For 2020 the selected organizations include People’s Community Clinic, Safe Alliance, Austin Park’s Foundation, Austin Pets Alive, Sustainable Food Center, Hospice Austin, Workers Defense Project, Meals on Wheels Central Texas, CASA, Central Texas Food Bank, Caritas of Austin, and Wheatsville Co-op Community Fund. At Wheatsville the mission statement isn't just a bunch of words, it's the way the co-op makes its day-to-day decisions.

Adapting to Change

Wheatsville prides itself on offering the community affordable, healthy food. The co-op runs a $5 dinner (What wine goes well with dinner?) service on Thursdays, where customers can visit the ‘dinner bar' in the early evening and select carefully prepared, scratch-made, warm foods made from quality ingredients.  They’ve recently had to suspend this service due to covid-19 but have introduced the ‘$5 Grab & Go’ special in its place. As the name suggests, you select a pre-packed dinner from the cooler and heat it up at home. They’ve made it available from 10 am until 9 pm on Thursdays. If you’re a senior or high-risk shopper it’s available from 9 am, as they’ve introduced a dedicated shopping hour for these members of the community - from 9 am to 10 am every Tuesday and Thursday.  For the rest of the public, the co-op is currently operating daily from 10 am to 9 pm.

Making the Hard Decisions

Although Wheatsville has flourished over the past 44 years, it does have its challenges, as any business does, especially during these times. Perhaps the biggest challenge the co-op has faced since the beginning of the COVID-19 situation was the decision to close the Deli department for the time being. The task was made difficult due to their dedication to providing the Austin community with high-quality, great-tasting food, and also because they employ a lot of people in the Deli department. Being a community-based business, the co-op resolved to keep people that wanted to work working. To this end, they began cross-departmental training for all Deli staff. Not only that, but they raised the pay-rate for all working employees. Decisions like this, based on integrity, are what make initiatives like Wheatsville stand out, and will probably serve to benefit both the co-op and its employees in the future.

COVID-19 Precautions

On the topic of COVID, we asked Karen Kovalovich, Ownership & Outreach Coordinator at Wheatsville, to give us an overview of the precautions that have been put in place amid the virus outbreak:

"At Wheatsville we have taken many steps to ensure the safety of both our customers and staff. Some of these steps have included adding additional hand sanitizers throughout our stores, sanitizing carts and shopping baskets after each use, sanitizing high-touch areas like registers and counters frequently, staggering staff schedules so there are less staff in aisles at any given time, asking customers to leave outside reusable containers at home- including bulk and water containers as well reusable shopping bags, limiting the number of shoppers in-store at a time, adding markers to ensure customers stay 6 feet apart while outside the stores and in line at the registers, staggering our active registers to help us maintain the required 6-foot separation between people, adding Plexiglas barriers to our registers, and requiring all staff to wear masks. With the ever-changing nature of the last few months, we have been constantly assessing and reevaluating our safety protocols to make sure we are doing everything we can to keep our stores safe for everyone!"

It seems like they've got that covered!

Becoming an Owner

Investing in Wheatsvile is straightforward. Once you've decided that you want to be an owner/member, you simply visit the co-op, fill out the documentation and pay a non-refundable joining fee of $15 along with a $55 investment, which can be paid in full or on a payment plan. Joining the co-op offers advantages such as savings, patronage rebates, being part of the community, and voting rights. Co-ops operate under the “one member, one vote” rule. Members share equal voting rights, which means that each member has only 1 vote. This circumvents the possibility that a specific person or group of people wield too much voting power, as is the case with businesses owned by shareholders.

Looking Ahead

Asked about Wheatsville’s vision for the future, Karen states it simply, “Our long-term vision is to continue to provide good food and great service, and to expand our reach by providing things like $5 Dinner (currently $5 Grab & Go) so that everyone in our community can eat at Wheatsville!”

Wheatsville Food Co-op is situated at 2 separate locations in Austin: 3101 Guadalupe St and 4001 S. Lamar Blvd.

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