Tucked away in a tiny corner of the East Village, barely noticeable to passersby, is a tiny storefront with dusty windows and bright red trim. Rows and rows of carefully bottled spices can be seen through the hazy glass, stacked precariously up to the ceiling. Next to the these are giant bins filled with uncooked grains and buckwheat that come out of dispensaries like candy, alongside buckets of handmade pasta. People stroll among the cramped aisle, filling reusable bags with quinoa or dried fruit. This tiny cave of a grocery is otherwise known as the 4th Street Food Co-op.
If you’ve ever gotten a sudden hankering to try hemp bliss (it’s not what you think), or a strong desire to learn the art of permaculture, then the 4th Street Co-op (58 East 4th Street near Bowery) is the place for you. Their food is organic, vegetarian, ethical, and mainly fair trade. So if you want to feel good about your food and not support mega-corporations like Whole Foods, this is also the place for you.
“I’ve been volunteering here for five years,” said Anita Rundles, sitting behind a huge, outdated cash register. “For us, organic is a big thing.”
Technically, a co-op can be any business that is “motivated not by profit, but by service-to meet their members’ need,” according to the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA), an organization that works to promote co-ops through programs like development grants, conferences, trainings, and lobbying.
The co-op business has been quite lucrative recently. The NCBA reports that there are 30,000 cooperative business in the U.S. alone, generating $500 billion in revenues and creating over 2 million jobs. A cooperative business model is not strictly limited to food distribution and agriculture—businesses in the retail, health care, and the electricity industries have employed the model as well.
Benjamin Franklin provided a model for thousands of businesses after him when he created a co-op for fire insurance in 1752—one that is still working today. Stressing the importance of community and volunteer participation, cooperative businesses like 4th Street strive for democratic decision-making above all.
“There used to be meat sold here—it was specially ordered, organic, and free range,” said Rundles. “But then the membership voted, all of them together, and collectively decided against it.”
But the 4th Street Co-op, like many other food distributors that emphasize local consumption and reject big corporations, has faced challenges in sticking to its non-profit business model.
“They really try to keep it all local, all organic,” Rundles said. “But a lot depends on the season. The bulk of things are hard to get—some stuff even comes from Mexico or California.”
Even with these challenges, the co-op has been doing well and is continually increasing its membership. For an annual fee, members can get unusual products at a big discount. Health food, like kale, couscous, and granola are co-op staples, but you can also find root beer, raw honey, recyclable panty liners, and if you’re really lucky, some dandelion greens.
So if you want to channel your inner Portlandia character, check out the 4th Street Co-Op.
Open challenge to Portlandia: We (the 4th St co-op) are the real deal!!!!
Your show mocks our reality and we challenge you to an impact contest.
Here is the challenge —- Who can have a more prolific effect of society?
Your show (with the most recent advertising campaign having a budget greater than all of Occupy Wall Street’s entire coffers) vs. us (a volunteer community resource that can supply real information, life-stlye modification, and true enviornmental responsibilty.) We challenge Portlandia to a duel of sustainability. This is not a joke.
By mocking the movement, like Portlandia does, while in reality, keeping the gate keepers (see who their advertisers are…jeeeez) in place, a major dis-service is being done to our movement.
Portlandia—come to our co-op and we will be funnier AND more relevant than Yooooooouuuu!!! Stick up your dukes, mockers!
^Jason Trachtenburg you are a personal hero, for this paragraph and also for the cover of “She Loves You”.
Thanks for writing about the co-op (I’m a member). Just a quick add, we are not as “cave” like as the photos & article suggest, as we renovated and replaced our floors last fall. All three photographs are old. Click our “about” page on the sig link to see how we look now or just stop by. Shoppers are welcome and encouraged to bring their own containers to fill with bulk dry goods and liquids.
Regarding local food, we don’t really try to keep it all local, we always have bananas, coffee, tea, chocolate, and olive oil in stock. In season, much of our produce is local, in winter not so much. We are at least 95% organic or better.
The comparison to Portlandia is incredibly asinine. Way to go, NYU.
@jason, you do realize that your overreactive comment about the slightly inappropriate word choice of someone who is clearly new to the cooperative movement is exactly the kind of “hipster” and overly self-important response and self-specification that Portlandia makes fun of. the article is not meant to compare to things that are utter opposites, but rather to relate an idea that might be rather foreign to some of the “city slickers” inhabiting the island, and make relate it to something more familiar. I think that all of the above comments in response to this article are overly harsh and show a failure to be open, understanding, and accepting of other people and cultures from other walks of life, and thus are uncooperative, and go directly against the cooperative movement. by responding in such a negative way that implies that everyone should know the goals of the cooperative movement and write their articles accordingly, you have successfully taken an opportunity to share and learn, and turned it into a forum for bashing a naive co-op newbie.