Given that Harvest shut down "after years of financial instability", what's the strategy for this new co-op to survive? If you can't run a successful co-op in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where can you?
PCC is also known to treat employees relatively poorly, just like grocery chains. There are also complaints about an "old boys" culture, familiar to anyone that worked retail long-term.
In the Seattle area, there are better coops like Central Co-op, with similar prices and better worker treatment (since all employees are owners in addition to opt-in shoppers)
At this point, PCC is just Whole Foods with higher prices...
I've heard this about every employer in Seattle. Forever, Costco had a great rep, now you can't mention it anywhere without people shitting on it. Starbucks used to give out benefits and was heralded, now being crapped on. Gravity Payments, lol at the founder's recent news stories.
And so forth. A lot of them are with good reason, but I'm pretty sure there's a strong sentiment in this city that "all management is bad management" even in employee-owned stores. Winco is a good example of that.
I mention that my employment at Microsoft was pretty good, despite being caught up in numbers-based layoffs, and people harshly wonder how I can speak well of a former employer who terminated my job without warning.
It's hard to take all the criticism all that seriously, to be honest.
On a more serious note, the Seattle Median Income is $120,907 for 2022, see page 4: https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/Housing/Proper...
Some folks prefer to shop there because they like the model - co-op businesses generally seem to be more invested in local communities.
I dunno, maybe it was mismanaged due to excessive ideological community involvement? Or maybe operating costs were just too high in one of the most expensive cities in the nation?
Harvest built out a very fancy new store very close to a major subway/bus terminus that was gorgeous but everyone went to the Whole Foods which was closer to the higher population-dense areas. Location, location, location - but also WF was very stiff competition.
I never saw rotten produce. I have no idea what the other commenter is on about. Organic, locally-sourced, heirloom produce often isn't as pretty as the stuff genetically modified or bred to survive being shipped halfway around the world and stored in a warehouse for 6 months.
I think co-ops work in more rural areas because it's not a fad to be there, it's the smart choice. Places in Cali are competing with an entire world of food on the same 10 square miles.
Wild place, but their apiary is cool.
In the UK we have two large grocery co-op chains. Waitrose is a worker owned co-op filling the Whole Foods niche while The Co-op is a consumer owned co-op with a mix of smaller grocery stores and medium sized supermarkets. In the US I think REI is the largest retail co-op, though we have at least one small food co-op in SF.
Once they reach a certain size they’re not all that different from regular public companies.
They’re perhaps more common in financial services with credit unions and mutual funds like Vanguard having customer owned structures. The U.K. used to have building societies (equivalent to US credit unions) but almost all turned into banks giving their members shares in the 80s and 90s.