Awards at CCMA for Cooperative Service and Retail Excellence

The annual award for Cooperative Service went to Amber and Nicole Sallaberry of Reno, Nev., and the Cooperative Excellence Award went to Seward Co-op in Minneapolis, Minn. Co-ops with milestone anniversaries (10, 30, 40, 50, and 70 years!) were also honored, and are noted below.

New Co-ops Add to Milestones

A dozen new co-ops opened in the past year, the largest such annual total in many years, and they were celebrated at CCMA 2011. Along with the newest members of the food co-op community, the conference crowd applauded milestones for established food co-ops, in decades ranging from 10 years to 70 years.

Newly opened food co-ops since June 2010:
• Berkeley Student Food Collective (Berkeley, Calif.)
• Chester’s Community Food Co-op (Chester, Pa.)
• Company Shops (Burlington, N.C.)
• Friendly City Food Co-op (Harrisonburg, Va.)
• Goodside Grocery Co-op (Sheboygan, Wis.)
• Old North Grocery Co-op (St. Louis, Mo.)
• Pogues Run Grocer (Indianapolis, Ind.)
• Proctor General Store (Proctor, Vt.)
• Ridgway Natural Foods Co-op (Ridgway, Colo.)
• Riverbend Market (Redwing, Minn.)
• Sierra Vista Food Co-op (Sierra Vista, Ariz.)
• Troy Community Food Co-op (Troy, N.Y.)

Milestones were noted for the following veteran food co-ops, listed by their year of opening:
2001:    South Royalton Food Co-op (Vt.)
1981:    Berkshire Co-op (Berkshire, Mass.)
             Common Market (Frederick, Md.)
             Three Rivers (Knoxville, Tenn.)
             Questa Food Co-op (Questa, Calif.)
             Whole Foods (Erie, Pa.)
             Wild Oats Co-op (Williamstown, Mass.)
1971:    Food Conspiracy (Tucson, Ariz.)
             Fort Collins Food Co-op (Ft. Collins, Colo.)
             GreenStar (Ithaca, N.Y.)
             Harvest Co-op (Cambridge, Mass.)
             Marquette Food Co-op (Marquette, Mich.)
             New Pioneer Co-op (Iowa City, Iowa)
             People’s Food Co-op (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
1961:    Puget Consumers Co-op—PCC Natural Markets (Seattle, Wash.)
1941:    Putney Consumer Co-op (Putney, Vt.)

Amber and Nicole Sallabery are sisters who for six years have been drivers of organizing the local food community around the Great Basin Community Food Co-op in Reno, Nev. They are sixth-generation Nevadans from a ranching family and, in their dedication to a local food economy, have networked over 50 producers and have worn all the hats to keep this community-based project rolling. In an extremely challenged economy, under the leadership of the Sallaberry sisters, Great Basin Co-op has secured USDA funding as well as gained over $400,000 in member loans in support of the co-op’s plans to move in late 2011 into a 7,000-square-foot facility, which will include a local farmer distribution ­center.

The award for Cooperative Excellence went to Seward Co-op in Minneapolis, which is in its second year of operations in its attractive new 25,000-square-foot facility and continues to experience strong growth in sales and member-owners. At its new location, Seward has attracted several thousand new members and has doubled annual sales to over $20 million. The co-op continues to catalyze and support community ventures in local agriculture and its city neighborhood, plus actively participates in the Principle Six cooperative campaign. General Manager Sean Doyle was joined by a dozen other Seward Co-op staff, board members, and former general managers in celebrating this cooperative enterprise, now in its 40th year and continuing to expand services to its community and local food economy.