Welcome to the Iowa Valley Food Cooperative. We are a direct-to-consumer cooperative of producer and consumer members in the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area. We are slated to open in the Summer of 2011. The Iowa Valley Food Coop is a web-based food coop for producers to market the products and receive orders from consumer members.
The Coop is being developed based on the pioneering work of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative and the Iowa Food Cooperative in Des Moines, IA. The Iowa Food Cooperative was launched in the fall of 2008 and sells thousands of dollars of locally produced meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and other items to their members every month. More information about these organizations can be found at their web sites: www.oklahomafood.coop and www.iowafood.org.
After realizing the pent up demand in this region for sustainably produced, local food – food produced with sound environmental practices, fair economic relationships, and concern for social impact, co-organizers Jason Grimm, Iowa Valley RC&D, and Jesse Singerman, Prairie Ventures LLC wanted to study this demand. They demonstrated this demand in the results of a consumer survey conducted in November 2009, during a joint project with a University of Iowa student group from the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center. Almost 70 percent of survey respondents indicated that they were extremely or very likely to participate in a buying club cooperative linking consumers directly with local farmers. Other surveys, the growth of local CSA’s and Farmer’s Markets, and anecdotal information from local producers and sales outlets confirmed the demand for the Iowa Valley Food Cooperative.
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