Are Co-Ops An Answer
To City’s Food Desert?

If the food co-op is truly going to make a 21st century comeback in New Haven, Stacy Spell said, the complexion of the participants will have to change.

Spell (pictured), a retired city detective and active volunteer in the West River neighborhood, was among two dozen people — farmers, gardeners and would-be cooperators — who gathered at Gateway Community College Thursday evening for the third and last seminar sponsored by the college’s Center for a Sustainable Future to discuss the pros and cons of co-ops, especially food co-ops. Most agreed that a co-op is a member-owned business where people come together to meet a common need. But differences in emphasis emerged.

One panelist promoted the kind of hybrid supermarket/co-op scheduled to open soon downtown at the 360 State project.

Spell said that wouldn’t meet the needs of his neighbors. The truth is, no single co-op — no matter what neighborhood it’s in — can meet the needs of shoppers from other parts of town.

New Haven used to have a larger food co-op that started in the Kimberly Square neighborhood, then expanded to what’s now the Minore’s market on Whalley Avenue. It closed in the early 1980s.

“Every community should have some kind of cooperative, because the co-op gives the chance for education; it gives the chance for empowerment, and those are the two greatest things we have to look for,” Spell argued. He’s been promoting the concept of food co-ops for years, and he’s learned that such a project is a great deal of work and planning and community involvement. That’s why it’s important to expand the base beyond the mostly white enthusiasts at the seminar, he said. Referring to his own community, he added, ​“We have the buying power, but we don’t use it. And then we have such distress in our community with diabetes, and high blood pressure and so many other ailments. It’s time for us to change.”

Eloise Marinos runs the GeoRoots Solar Growth Farm in North Canton, Connecticut. She brought the trays of just-picked greens for folks to snack on during the three-hour gathering. (That’s another West River resident in photo below, Jerry Poole, filling his plate with samples.) Other snacks were provided by Imani Zito, who operates the Hartford restaurant Alchemy, specializing in local and organic fare, much of it raw. (Marinos is on the left, Zito on the right in photo above.)

Co-ops offer worker control and the chance to keep the majority of dollars spent circulating in the local community. But they could face competition from an unlikely source, said Marinos. ​“One thing your co-ops are going to find in the buyers’ department here is that you are in direct competition with farmers’ markets.”

With a new farmers’ market opening in the Hill in July, New Haven will have six farmers’ markets, where consumers can buy direct from farmers and cut out the middleman of a co-op. But co-ops offer other advantages, like the possibility of delivering fresh, local food to the homes of the elderly. That was one way participants saw of making the co-op serve the community.