It turns out that one of the most successful grocers around by some measures isn't really in it for the money.
The Park Slope Food Coop (PSFC), the largest consumer-owned single-store coop by sales in the U.S., had $39.4 million in sales during its last fiscal year, raking in more than $6,500 per square foot annually. "Anyone would salivate at that," says Ann Herpel, a general coordinator at PSFC. In our recent story on Trader Joe's we noted that the successful Monrovia, Calif.-based chain outdoes it competition with an average of $1,750 in sales per square foot, more than double those of Whole Foods (WFMI, Fortune 500).
Traditional supermarkets should pay attention, and not just to those stellar financials. Under the coop model, the owner and the consumer are one in the same. "A coop has to make money but also has to have the best interest of its owners, who are also its shoppers, at heart," says Robynn Shrader, CEO of the National Cooperative Grocer's Association (NCGA).
As a result, as PSFC notes on its site, it is "responsive to the membership rather than to the companies trying to sell their products." Because coops don't need shareholders or executives to back initiatives, they answer customer-member demands quickly and are often ahead of national trends. Take grocery bags — PSFC stopped handing them out (both paper and plastic) altogether two and half years ago.
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