The Coop in 2012

A new year is traditionally a time to take stock of how things are going and to think about new ideas for the coming year. The Oklahoma Food Coop is not immune to the lure of rethinking the way we do business.  You may have landed here because you completed one of the surveys we launched to gauge the level of support for going to two delivery days/month.  Thanks for your participation, and if you didn't land here after participating in one or more of those surveys, here are the links, please click on them and fill them out.  Complete each survey that pertains to you, as a customer, producer, and/or volunteer for the Coop.

http://kwiksurveys.com?u=okcoopproducers

http://kwiksurveys.com?u=okcoopcustomers

http://kwiksurveys.com?u=okcoopvolunteers

We are considering some other possibilities.

• We may field a food truck, featuring an all-Oklahoma (or mostly-Oklahoma) menu with products bought from our producers.
• We have found a manufacturer of paper products here in Oklahoma, but they are too big to be interested in joining the coop (their minimum delivery to one address is one semi-truck full). But if we pick up they will sell in smaller lots to us at a wholesale price. We could then offer made-in-Oklahoma toilet paper to our members, with the profits supporting our core local food and non-food product activities.
• We are considering kiosks and shelf space in stores offering our artisan body care products.

And of course, we continue to focus on our core competency of local food delivery. We are looking forward to the arrival of our new website sometime in the new year, which we think will be a great improvement over the present online shopping experience of the Oklahoma Food Coop.  In addition --

• We need additional pickup sites. In Oklahoma City, in particular we need a Village/Nichols Hills area pickup site, and a Luther/Jones/Arcadia pickup site. But we need pickup sites elsewhere in the state too.
• We want to improve the pickup site experience and we need input as to how that can work better. We wonder how big a deal it is that people have to "hunt and peck" for their individual items, and how much of an improvement it would be if frozen and refrigerated items arrived sorted to their individual orders the way that dry goods are.
• What else is on people's minds in this regard?

One thing that's important to remember -- all of us in the Coop are owners.  That suggests both rights and responsibilities.  Whatever resolutions we may make for the New Year, let's include one about becoming more active in the Oklahoma Food Cooperative!  2012 is the Year of the Cooperative, so let's make it a good one!