The Jersey City Independent "

Illustration: Natalya Aleksahina

Red House Roasters’ Jersey Devil coffee. Cocoa Bakery’s honey black pepper truffles. Schripps’ five-grain pullman bread. All of these products are Hudson County-made but, until now, impossible to find in one place in Jersey City. Two stores on the horizon will change that. And both are co-ops.

Traditionally, co-op food stores are collectively owned operations whose members pay a fee to join and in return have a say in how the store is run and what goods — usually local, natural, organic, or some combination of the three — are carried. But of Jersey City’s two upcoming stores, only one sticks to that definition, with the other arguing that it is too rigid a formulation for the harried life of today’s urbanites. While the two co-ops may disagree on that crucial point, they are both working towards the same goal of bringing more food-shopping options to the city.

The Jersey City Food Coop Initiative (JCFC), which is still in its planning stages, follows the International Cooperative Alliance’s (ICA) seven principles of cooperative business, which include democratic member control, member economic participation, and education and concern for the community.

The JCFC, which is the brainchild of organizers like Gillian Allen (at left), believes that all co-ops should follow these rules — “without question,” the JCFC’s board of trustees tells us (they chose to answer questions collectively rather than individually). They quote the ICA’s Statement of Cooperative Identity as a guiding principle.

“The cooperative principles are guidelines by which cooperatives put their values into practice,” it reads. “Cooperatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity.”

For JCFC, part of that equity is sweat-based. To belong to the co-op and get access to discounted, quality food, you have to put in time working at the store or events. But it can be tough in the midst of this recession, when jobs are requiring longer and longer working hours, to find time to volunteer.

Enter Downtown Coop, which plans to open November 1 on the ground floor of the Hamilton Square development on Hamilton Park. Its business model breaks with the traditional definition of a co-op, with additional monetary investment replacing volunteer work. Downtown offers working memberships; individuals who want a non-working one simply pay more to have a stake in the store.

“A mandate for working as a requirement for membership would lower the costs of goods, however, we believe members are willing to pay a little more for organic, local, conventionally grown, pasture-raised and grass-fed products,” Downtown Coop says on its website. “Families and individuals in Jersey City are stretched for time; this should not exclude them from the ability to shop for high-quality foods at reasonable prices.”

But the JCFC sees the time invested by members in the store as beneficial to both parties — a joy rather than a chore — and part of the community-building that is an integral co-op principle.

“Our members will work to build a co-operative and community, but reduced pricing for high-quality food is just one of the benefits,” says the Board of Trustees. “The greatest benefit as working member-owners is that you have a choice — a choice to build a community with one another and keep your prices down. Why would you choose anything else?”

Meanwhile, the Downtown Coop has found that prospective members, given the choice, do want to work.

“When we started we thought more people would be interested in not working, just because people’s lives are frantic. If they’re anything like us, they have kids, and they both work,” says Dave Suliburk, who co-founded Downtown Coop with his wife Mary. “What we found out was, it’s actually almost a 50/50 split. A lot of people want to come and help.”

Last month, the Suliburks held a membership event at its Hamilton Square location, previewing what they’ll offer in the store. The event attracted a few dozen residents who seemed excited to have a neighborhood grocery store selling natural, organic and local food at a lower price point.

“I’m delighted at the number of people who want to get involved,” Suliburk says. He and his wife live in the neighborhood, and are both charter members of the newly organized Hamilton Park Conservancy. They see their store as building up two communities — the hyperlocal neighborhood surrounding Hamilton Park, and the broader local and regional economy of small businesses and farmers.

“Buying and eating local foods supports the sustainable food cycle by limiting the consumers’ carbon purchasing footprint,” Mary Suliburk says. “By supporting local, independent farms, we support environmentally friendly farming practices, limit shipping costs and the chemicals necessary to keep food fresh, while minimizing the fuels necessary to ship foods great distances and adding to the ability of local farms to earn a living wage. Local is healthier — for our bodies and planet.”

Both the Downtown Coop and the JCFC aim to sell goods from producers no more than 100 miles away. “We are fortunate to live in such an abundant state and region,” Mary notes.

The Downtown Coop will carry goods from local producers like Jersey City’s Cocoa Bakery, Schripps Breads in North Bergen and Union City coffee company Red House Roasters, as well as goods from folks like Joelle Peterson, who is currently baking sweets like zucchini-walnut bread with lemon glaze from home.

“There’s nothing [here] that isn’t something I feel like I wouldn’t feed my kids or my neighbors and wouldn’t be proud of,” Mary says about the store’s offerings.

The Downtown Coop is also personally vetting their meat and egg producers through farm visits, another plus to having producer and buyer within driving distance.

“Everything that we get, I want to see,” Mary says, adding that they are planning field-trip farm visits for members as well.

“It’s important for people to understand where their food came from, and see it and say, ‘I know when I pick this up where it came from,’” she says. “I think that will be something people will appreciate about the store.”

Meanwhile, the JCFC has already reached selling agreements with Foodshed Alliance, a nonprofit devoted to promoting locally grown food and farming, and Frontier Co-op, a producer co-op offering sustainable and responsibly produced natural and organic products.

While its physical store is still being planned, the JCFC will be launching a buying club as early as October, according to its Board of Trustees. The buying club will give members access to food from the JCFC’s suppliers now, while the JCFC works toward setting up a physical retail location.

Ultimately, both co-ops aim to reduce the amount of trips Jersey City residents make to get all their shopping done.

“Most people in Jersey City can appreciate the complexity of shopping for local, organic, or specialty foods,” Mary Suliburk says. As an example, she points to her current “web of shopping and intricate grocery list for multiple stores in the area,” which includes local farmers markets, delivery from Fresh Direct, trips out of town to Whole Foods and local trips to Jersey City grocery stores. As the JCFC’s Allen told us in May, she has a similar routine, sometimes shopping for food in Bayonne, Westfield or even Brooklyn.

“Unfortunately, it is often hard — if not impossible — to find all our grocery needs in one place,” Suliburk continues. “We hope to create a community store that allows people to shop in one place for great, healthful foods.”

SO WHICH CO-OP IS RIGHT FOR YOU?

Jersey City Food Coop

Who can join: Anyone who accepts the terms of membership
Cost: To be determined
Time commitment: To be determined
Location: To be determined
What they’ll carry: Seasonal fruits and vegetables, grass-fed and hormone-free meats, eggs, breads, herbs & teas, coffee, household and beauty products
Opening date: Approximately September 2011, with a buying club to start in October 2010
Can you shop without joining? No
You should join if …: You want to be 100 percent invested and involved in your grocery store.

Downtown Coop

Who can join: All adults over the age of 18, either as a household or as individuals. A household is two or more adults living under the same roof who share all or some domestic responsibility
Cost: $100 for a one-time Member Investment; non-working members also pay an extra $50 annually.
Time commitment: 1 hour per month for a working member; households may be required to work more hours.
Location: Hamilton Square condominiums, 9th Street & McWilliams Place
What they’ll carry: Local (when possible), natural, fair-trade, and organic foods, including produce, meat, cheese, milk, bread, dry goods, and basic shopping needs
Opening date: November 1, 2010
Can you shop without joining? Yes, but you won’t receive the member discount.
You should join if …: You want to shop at a co-op without working at one.

FIND OUT EVEN MORE

Downtown Coop hosts an Art Showing and Coffee Tasting for prospective members this Sunday from 10 am to 1 pm at 29 McWilliams Place. Later that day, the Jersey City Food Coop Initiative hosts a Pot Luck General Meeting from 2 to 4:30 pm at 135 St. Paul’s Avenue.

Like what you've read here? Please consider making a donation or becoming a sustaining member. As a grassroots news organization, we rely on community support -- as well as paid advertising -- to survive.