Published: January 24, 2008 11:36 pm         

Several interested in forming new food co-op in Terre Haute

TERRE HAUTE — Robyn Morton is tired of going to the “special section” of the grocery store for organic food.

“In Terre Haute, trying to find local, organic goods is a skill-set,” she said. “… I’ve had people come to my house and had little mini-seminars on how to find local and organic goods.”

Morton spoke to a crowd of 60 to 70 people Thursday night about forming Terre Foods Co-op, a cooperative market that would carry local produce, dairy, meat and eggs as well as bulk dry foods and organic foods.

A co-op is owned by its members, who are responsible for the costs of starting and running the business. All members control the business decisions with an equal number of votes.

Members share the profit and those who participate the most get more profits. Although the co-op will have members, anyone will be able to shop at it.

“Part of the point of a co-op is that we want to take a little bit of the work out of this,” Morton told the crowd. “We want to put it all in one place, make it easy to get to.”

Stay local. That’s the focus of co-op.

“We want the co-op to strengthen our local economy by providing local foods from local producers, local farmers,” Morton said. “We want to create a market for the local farmers and producers … We want to entice the existing producers to expand, we want to strengthen our local food distribution systems and we want to try to employ as many sustainable business practices as we can. We want to try to show the rest of the world that being sustainable is environmentally beautiful.”

Currently, the group is determining the community’s interests, working on becoming incorporated, forming committees, solidifying its mission and vision statement, participating in seminars, working with other co-ops such as Bloomingfoods in Bloomington and raising money.

The most critical things the group now needs is a feasibility study and business development plan.

Some of the things determined in a feasibility study based on community demographics include the cost of membership fees, size of the store and types of products offered.

Glen Cockerham, a fundraising committee member, said the feasibility study is expected to cost $6,000 to $12,000. Aside from that, the only money needed for now is to pay the state fee and an attorney to handle becoming incorporated, he said.

Other logistics of the co-op still need to be worked out. Starting the co-op will take place in three stages: organizing, feasibility and planning and implementation.

Stage one is expected to take six months to a year while feasibility and planning will each take three to six months for stage two.

Preconstruction, construction and renovation, and preparation for opening make up stage three, with all of it taking six months to a year.

People could be shopping at Terre Foods Co-op in 19 to 37 months.

“You make it happen, you bring it to your community,” said Tammy Tincher of the membership community, “so I think that’s the community’s biggest benefit of being a member and owning that store.”

As a vegetarian and “health nut,” Terre Haute resident Angela Turmin said she likes the idea of a co-op.

Turmin said the community would benefit by having “more food choices, more guarantees food is as fresh as possible.”

Don Richards of Terre Haute said the co-op is an “outstanding idea.”

Richards, an economics professor at Indiana State University, hopes to get involved with the planning/steering committee somehow because he’s teaching a food sustainable agriculture class in the fall. He said he thinks his students will be able to help out.

He said there is a lot of potential to help the community by starting a co-op.

“It’s a source of good, local food to eat,” Richards said. “If it stimulates more local agricultural production, that would be wonderful … Anything you can do to contribute to the local economy is good for the community.”

For more information about Terre Foods Co-op, visit www.terrefoods.org or e-mail info@terrefoods.org.

Crystal Garcia can be reached at (812) 231-4271 or crystal.garcia@tribstar.com.