Most food co-ops resemble a brick and mortar retail grocery store with a healthy, sustainable, local product selection – and a lot of character. Hundreds of communities across the world have food co-ops. Every store is different because every local food system is unique.

Stone’s Throw Market Co-op is a business with a social mission. Community-owned grocery stores are only one type of cooperative business.  Co-ops come in many shapes and sizes, and they all share a commitment to the Seven Internationally Recognized Principles that guide how business is done:

  • Voluntary and open membership
  • Democratic member control
  • Member economic participation
  • Concern for community
  • Autonomy and independence
  • Education, training, and information
  • Cooperation among cooperatives

Since cooperatives actively engage with the community, many people think that cooperatives are nonprofit organizations. To the contrary, co-ops are profit-making entities. The difference is that co-ops focus on the Triple Bottom Line – people, planet, AND profit.

Stone’s Throw Market is part of something bigger – a movement to change the way our economy works. The cooperative business structure creates opportunities for individuals to pool their resources and accomplish things they could never do alone.

It’s no wonder the United Nations declared 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives!  We hope you’ll join Stone’s Throw Market Co-op in thinking globally and acting locally this year.