[BCN] food co-op book

[Joshua Laskin]

Howdy all,
  Anyone interested in Harvest and has some free
time on their hands, should take a look at a
small book called, "What Happened to the Berkeley
Co-op?"  It's available online for free download,
at the website of the Rural Cooperatives Center
(at University of California, Davis, Department
of Agriculture and Resource Economics), at:  
      www.cooperatives.ucdavis.edu
Click on 'Publications', on the left, then go
down the list to 'Consumer'.
  The Berkeley (CA) Food Co-op was the biggest
and most successful food co-op in the USA--the
'flagship' of the movement.  And then suddenly it
went out of business.  The Japanese co-ops sent
some folks over to Berkeley to find out what
happened.  This little book is the collection of
their interviews with people from all
levels--it's fascinating, how they all had such
radically different views of how the co-op
screwed up.
  The aspect of the Berkeley experience which
most relates to Harvest's situation, I think, was
their inability to quickly close a store that was
losing money.  They had some stores which were
very successful, but their failing stores were
kept open too long, and ended up dragging the
profitable stores down with them into oblivion. 
They couldn't close failing stores quickly,
because Members in those neighborhoods organized
to fight the closures.
  This relates to Harvest, because it's the
Cambridge store which is the real problem, having
little or no sales growth--while the JP store has
had good sales growth (though slowed a bit last
year).  The simplest thing to do, would be to
close the Central Square store--then, the JP
store could continue on, perhaps indefinitely (or
until a new WholeFoods or TraderJoes goes up
nearby)--but the Berkeley experience shows that
closing Cambridge wouldn't be so easy.
  Also, if Harvest did shrink to a single store,
Management-pay would be cut...
  So I think we can rule out the option of
closing one store to save the other.  JP is
doomed unless Central Square is saved.

Joshua

PS  Harvest WAS able to close the Allston store
quickly, but that was because many Allston-store
shoppers lived in JP--and the closure was
preparatory to opening a 2nd store nearer JP,
with the proceeds from the sale of the Allston
building.     




 
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