The most successful Island Food Co-op seems to be the San Juan Island Food Co-op. Last year, the founders shared some insight. They started out with a very small location, maintained low overhead and depended on volunteer labor. The San Juan Food Co-op rewarded volunteers by expanding access to the co-op and selling at cost. That SJI Food Co-op had/has a leader interested in healthy organic food for her family helped. I live on Orcas.
I am not connected with today’s new Orcas Island Food Co-op. San Juan Food Co-operative was able to build community support carefully, over many years.
What do Orcas Islanders value in an Orcas Food Co-op? Orcas Islanders – the customers, will determine if the Orcas Food Co-op succeeds. Who better to ask than islanders?
In 2010, I designed a short survey for what I called the Orcas Island Food Co-operative/Nonprofit to address that question.
This report summarizes the results of a three-year effort to quantify the local market for an Orcas Island Food Co-op. One hundred and sixty-nine people responded to the survey. Ninety-two percent of those responding said they lived in San Juan County full-time. The majority live on Orcas Island (85 percent) followed by San Juan Island with 11 percent. Twelve percent of the respondents are retired.
Asked how often they would shop at a food co-operative, 50 percent of respondents indicated they’d shop “once every few days” while 25 percent said “once a week” and 11 percent said “once a day.”
On a scale from one to five (with five being the highest) 83 percent of respondents indicated that organic foods were high (4) to very high (5) value. Of the 165 respondents, 84 percent said affordable pricing was important (4) to very important (5). A total of 73 percent of respondents indicated that food independence is very important (5) for the island. Twenty-nine percent responding said a $10 a year membership fee would be compelling, with six percent responding they’d join if the fee as high as $250 a year. Fifty percent indicated they expected to save 20 to 30 percent.
Additional information is available from the Islanders Club, a local not for profit, at alex.huppenthal@gmail.com. The survey is available at http://bit.ly/Yh5piM.
Alex Huppenthal
Orcas Island
