We’ve long been defenders of the Park Slope Food Coop, but the place has been a raging nut house lately. According to the Linewaters’ Gazette, the coop’s biweekly newsletter, membership is up 10 percent in the last year, causing aisle gridlock, endless lines and a pervasive crankiness about the place. Do coop members really save enough to make it all worthwhile? Not necessarily. We crunched some numbers.
The obvious alternative to the coop is Fairway, since so many other Brooklyn food stores are either crazy-expensive boutiques or weird-smelling chains. But isn’t Fairway much pricier than the venerable hippie holdout? With the help of Brokelyn contributor Gretchen Muller, we recently price-checked a sample basket of grocery items at each store (current prices may vary). Here’s what we found:
COOP / FAIRWAY
1 pound bag baby spring lettuce mix
$5.16 / $5.99
1 pound seedless green non-organic grapes
$1.96 / $1.49
1 quart Spectrum organic canola oil
$8.12 / $10.79
1 pound Murray’s boneless, organic chicken breasts
$4.98 / $5.69
Sabra hummus with pine nuts
$3.87 / $4.79
Applegate Farms fire-roasted red pepper sausage
$5.67 / $5.99
YoBaby yogurt six-pack
$3.33 / $3.89
Half-gallon Tropicana orange juice
$3.36 / $3.69
1 8-ounce Philadelphia bar cream cheese
$2.19 / $2.49
Newman’s Own roasted garlic sauce
$2.53 / $2.49
Bonne Maman apricot preserves
$3.32 / $3.69
Seventh Generation laundry detergent
$13.58 (for 100-ounce box) / $15.98 (2 50-ounce boxes)
Annie’s shitake vinaigrette
$4.30 / $5.49
Solgar B complex 100 vitamins/100 caps
$9.48 / $16.72
1 six-pack Blue Point toasted lager
$8.16 / $9.99
Ben & Jerry’s coffee heath bar crunch
$3.48 / $3.79
And so the grand total is:
FOOD COOP: $83.49
FAIRWAY: $102.96
Based on our very random sample, Fairway prices are a not insignificant 23 percent more than the coop’s. So now let’s take a hypothetical couple, coop members, and say they spend $100 a week on groceries for a total annual expenditure of $5,200. The same groceries would have cost them 23 percent more at Fairway, or about $1,200 more. So far, so good. But there’s another thing to consider—the coop’s work requirement. Each adult member of the household has to work 2.75-hour shift a month, which adds up to roughly a week a year.
Basing the decision to join or not to join the coop on cold hard math alone, the household’s total labor must be worth less than $1,200 a week, or $62,400 a year for the coop to be a good deal.
If you take away the vitamins, which account for the biggest difference in prices between the coop and Fairway, the spread drops to 16.5 percent, or roughly $860 over the course of the year. Using the same math, that makes the coop a worthwhile business decision for a household whose labor is valued at less than that amount per week, or roughly $44,700 a year. (These calculations assume, of course, that you attend all of your shifts and don’t wind up owing extra ones. If you miss a shift and don’t replace yourself, coop policy requires you to work an extra one to maintain your shopping privileges.)
But if you spend more, the coop is worth more to you, obviously. If our vitamin-loving couple spends $200 a week at the coop, they could make up to $124,800 a year for it to be worthwhile. Our non-vitamin couple, spending $200 a week, and saving roughly $2,400 a year, could make up to just over $89,000 a year.
Of course there are lots of other benefits to coop membership that math alone can’t account for: free childcare when you shop, exceptionally high quality meat and produce, the entertainment value of the general meetings, convenience if you live in the Slope and don’t have a car, etc. But is it really worth the growing hassle?
View Comments (40)
Thanks for the price comparison. I'm moving from the heart of Park Slope to East Village & have been considering whether it's worth it keep up my membership (I'm a foodie who will live with 2 major foodies, so we have incentive.)
However, this side-by-side comparison doesn't reflect what I consider the Coop's real advantage: inexpensive, high-quality bulk commodities, including cheeses, nuts, grains, dried fruit, coffee, etc.
I can put together a truly fabulous cheese plate & selection of party munchies for under $20. You can't do that at any other grocery store.
That's true, Norah. But did you ever wonder why they always make the cheese wedges so small at the coop? Makes me crazy!
Yeah, they're dinky but you can call and have them put aside a bigger piece for you. You can also go to the Dartagnan website and pick out something fancy and they'll order it for you.
I love the Coop. Please, all you haters, continue to hate and badmouth us, because we are at 14,000 members and counting. Crowded? Yes! Crazy? Yes! so DON'T JOIN. Seriously, I don't want to have to wait behind you in the express lane while you wander off to grab more cheap gorgeous produce and fill your cart with WAAAAY more than 15 items.
and to respond to the comments above suggesting that we offer members a 10% discount, open up to the public, and drop the work requirement, keep in mind that the coop is not a for-profit grocery store. Check out the mission statement at foodcoop.com "We share responsibilities and benefits equally." and "We are a buying agent for our members and not a selling agent for any industry."
@one smart cookie Unless he already took advantage of it, your hub can rejoin & get amnesty for past shifts owed.
Don't forget the bulk foods section. It's an entire aisle of grains, granola, pasta, dried fruits, nuts, teas, spices, etc. This is great bec. you're not stuck with a $8 jar of spices that's gonna lost flavor & potency. We've tried so many new recipes this way.
Two words: Trader Joes
I agree with some previous commenters here in that the coop is great for making both organic and conventional produce more affordable; the sample baskets in the article didn't really reflect that. Also, while I understand the status/elitist point, there really is a lot of ethnic and cultural diversity there.
The coop is definitely *not* for certain people - that is - not for people who have irregular or unpredictable schedules, or work relatively long hours. So, for example, it's not for most small business owners, or for people whose work involves short-notice travelling. I learned this the hard way, and also learned that there are so many members, that staff-members and work coordinators don't necessarily care about your problem, and why should they?
I've lived in cooperative houses, cooked in cooperative kitchens, and have been an officer in a cooperative organization. When coops become first and foremost about saving money (and what coops are about is what their members are about), the human element goes away. I'm sure this is why the PSFC holds so strongly to their work requirement - they realize that without it, they're a buying club.
Coops are at root conservative social organizations - they tie people down to a place, a schedule, a culture, and (usually) an ideology. They're not unlike religious organizations in that way. I don't mean this judgmentally, but it's just true. They tend to generate similar conflicts.
Well, the 'shopping cart' you put together to compare the Coop with Fairway isn't representative of the biggest savings the Coop offers, namely, organic/local fruits and vegetables, nor does the price of the products listed reflect the fact that the Coop turns over its entire inventory, roof to basement, more than once a week.
I would be very hard pressed to afford my largely organic diet without the Coop. That doesn't matter to lots of people -- I understand. But it does to me and for that I am grateful to the Coop
@dogisdead - the coop does take EBT, for the record.