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For most New Yorkers, a trip to the grocery store is an unpleasant chore. Walking through the doors at Trader Joe’s in Downtown Brooklyn on a Thursday night, chaos hits just as the inaugural blast of cold air crosses your face. Glances are only be exchanged between two customers reaching for the same bag of frozen berries. Biting words are muttered into shirt collars as one shopper attempts to beat the system, placing her cart in the rapidly growing serpentine line and returning only once she has tracked down everything she needs. Employees direct traffic atop wooden crates. Conclusion only comes once a receipt is thrust into your hand, confirming that once again, too much money was spent on too few items.
But what if it could be different?
A Thursday night at the Greene Hill Food Co-op offers warm smiles and chiming hellos from customers and employees alike. But come back two and a half hours later, and the beige “I joined Greene Hill” aprons may be tied on those “customers” waists.
“It’s a really interesting treat to be able to walk around your neighborhood and see tons of people that you know and say hi to people, especially in New York,” says Lindsey Reichart, who joined the co-op in 2012 after her characteristically laidback boyfriend had one too many stressful outbursts in their local supermarket. “Then you go to your grocery store and when you walk in you see a bunch of people you know, you have some nice conversations, and you get to pick up this awesome food at an affordable price.”
As a 100% working co-op, all shoppers must be member-owners who earn their access by working at least two and a half hours every four weeks. The jobs vary, some stock shelves while others run the registers, but it all serves the same purpose.
“Our co-op helps us remember how to be a democracy and how to work together collectively in a city that’s very much about individual growth and individual needs,” says Aly Miller, a member-owner since 2012. “Our goal isn’t to turn a profit, and if we do profit, that money goes back into the co-op.”
The small shop with large open windows, a bright green façade, and “co-op” written in broad white letters across the top of the storefront, serves the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy and Prospect Heights. Together with the Park Slope Food Co-op, which has been operating since 1973, Greene Hill is one of only two food co-ops in the nation that function on an entirely worker-run business model. This allows for a drop in price without a drop in quality.
“I’ve shopped at the co-op for so long than when I do find myself in another grocery store I have sticker shock about how expensive a thing of yogurt is,” seven-year member Hannah Weitzer says, ringing in a shopper’s tomatoes during her monthly cashier shift.
In addition to the marked down artisanal items (KIND bars run for $1.96 at Greene Hill and $2.99 at the bodega across the street, Banza chickpea pasta costs $4.04 versus the bodega’s $5.29), Greene Hill also makes sure to keep a stock of household items. 99-cent Goya black beans share the shelf with organic cannellini beans in BPA-free cans costing $2.53. The store’s freezer section proudly boasts both organic tempeh burgers and TGI-Friday’s quesadilla rolls.
“The question is really how can we sustain the community around us,” says Reichart, who currently serves as the co-op’s produce-buyer. “We need to provide affordable food, but we also need to provide familiar food.”
Though co-ops have existed in America since colonial times, the model has changed dramatically throughout the years. Unlike cooperatives today, the food co-ops of the past relied mainly on the organization of purchases between cooperatively owned wholesalers and elected buying groups. Aided in part by FDR’s New Deal and fueled by the memory of the Great Depression, the 1930s saw an increase in general stores designed with the customer at the helm. What began as a survival tactic soon turned political as the second-wave of cooperatives started to surge. In the midst of 1960s counterculture, co-ops arose as yet another way to stick it to the man. The member-owner model takes that even further, giving the customer the keys to the door.
“The co-op is a much better place when people treat the co-op like they own the co-op,” Reichart says.
On top of the work requirement, member-owners are asked to pay a $25 non-refundable administrator fee and invest $150 in the co-op itself. “Through this financial investment, members share in the Co-op’s risk and its success,” the Greene Hill website states. If a member resigns or the co-op dissolves, the investment money is returned. Along with offering a one-month free trial, there are five different payment options (all named according to a fruit or vegetable) designed to increase access to potential members. The Lettuce plan serves as the standard, full-payment and full work hours required, whereas the Apple plan allows those involved in public assistance programs such as SNAP/EBT, Section 8 Housing, and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) to pay only a $5 administration fee and a $25 membership investment.
“With the investment you really feel like this is a place you have a stake in and want to be part of,” says Sara James, a member since last April who regularly visits the store with her two children. “Everybody is here because they want to be.”