African Heritage Food Coop in Buffalo

WIVB has been doing some good coverage on the local food movement and efforts of local people to address the food desert – especially the desert on the East Side.

Today they covered a new coop called the African Heritage Food Coop. Its goal is to eventually hire 60 people. My impression was that these people would be from the African American community. It is possible that they would be hiring from the urban unemployed in general.

They are a food coop in the style of the Elmwood Coop and Lexington Avenue Coop. They provide food to members – according to the story $30 gets members between $50 and $70 in food. (If I lived in Buffalo, I would see if I could get in on that. Sadly, I don't.  I do want to find their location though.)

Where is the food coming from? Local farmers. To me – another win. Local farmers get a better deal (in my impression) from coops than from the supermarkets. I imagine that during the winter months this will continue and I hope they expand to some of the urban farms and greenhouse projects that can grow fresh food all year round.

And the owner said that the goal is to make a profit. They are a business.

Wait – a socialist supporting a business that makes a profit? Well, yes. I understand that in order for a business to succeed it needs to do more than break even. Any high school senior that has taken Economics (aka capitalist propaganda) or a high school business major can tell you that.

The issue is who gets the profits. In corporate America the profits go to the 1%. The rich. In a coop the profits go to the workers that make the business succeed. That is good for the workers who will use the money (hopefully) to improve their lives: Invest in a house, their own education, etc. and improve their lives and also spend their money on other locally owned and operated worker coops.

Even better if they pool their money together and start a African American owned credit union or join a credit union rather than sink their money into a corporate bank where they get a pittance for interest while (again) the 1% make a killing.

To me, this story is about workers empowering themselves.

We need more stories like this in local media where the workers cut the strings from the corporate ruling class and build themselves up.

Marx & Engles, let alone Trotsky, James Cannon or any others, never really spelled out what they thought real socialism would look like. To me, part of what socialism is looks like worker owned and worker run cooperatives. Also credit unions, community owned broadband (Internet), and other utilities.

If the working class is to free itself from the chains that bind it, worker owned and run cooperatives and other programs that benefit the working class must be created, supported, and protected from corporate control and influence.

I wish this new cooperative success and hope that others follow their lead.

May they and other coops become the leadership in the revolution against the 1%.

Update:  Good story on the founding of the coop from WKBW.  They have been improving their local stories nicely.