Oklahoma Food Cooperative Summary

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, US: Oklahoma Food Cooperative   www.oklahomafood.coop

The Oklahoma Food Cooperative is paving the way for a new concept in food distribution by bringing together regional food producers and consumers through an easy-to-navigate website. With a statewide network of volunteers, the enterprise pumps nearly $1 million into the pockets of local food producers each year. On delivery days, sixty different producers deliver product.  Fifty-plus volunteers take the products and distribute them into 650 individual orders which are then picked up at 38 different sites across the state.  All of this is compressed into a six-hour spree of activity which yields approximately $65,000 in revenue.  The model is so simple, so inexpensive, and so effective that it has spread to Idaho, Texas, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and two locations in Ontario, Canada. Other imitators are moving ahead in Massachusetts and Missouri.

The co-op generally operates within a 160-mile radius of Oklahoma City. Founder and president Bob Waldrop says co-op members include “people in the most expensive zip codes and in the lowest income zip codes.”  With a heavy emphasis on education, the co-op teaches producers to tell their stories, which leads to an increase in sales.  For the consumer, buying regional foods offers lessons in nutrition, cooking, and the importance of sustaining the local economy. 

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