Supporting Local Food Co-Ops - Building Community Resilience.
by HiHo Team - 17:12 on 26 June 2020
During lockdown local communities have come together to help each other. Highland Wholefoods has been supporting this by supplying local food co-operatives all over the Highlands.
Local Food Coops bring local communities together in bulk buying groups to access wholefoods which may not be available in their local area. By bulk buying communities are rewarded with our best prices. We support the local co-ops with advice and by offering them a discount of up to 25%.
As a worker’s cooperative Highland Wholefoods believes in cooperative principles which include “Co-operation among co-operatives” and “concern for community”.
Cooperative fortnight takes place from 22nd June to 5th July. The theme for 2020 is #KeepCooperating, as we harness the changed behaviour that we've seen during the COVID19 pandemic.
The Skerray Food Co-op, from the North coast of Scotland is our newest food co-op. Al Whitworth commented;
"The Skerray Food Co-op was set up in April this year as a response to Covid to help many of the community who were self isolating to get food in, particularly bread flour. We've since received some funding from the Highland Council allowing us to buy in bulk peat free compost for resale in the community and set up a BioD refill station in the small community shop and Post Office we have in the village. We will certainly be carrying on with the co-op, ordering bi-monthly from Highland Wholefoods and looking into other ideas that will make our small community more resilient"
South Skye Buying Group have been cooperating to buy food communally for over 30 years. Peter from the South Skye buying group commented that;
Our group was founded in 1988. We’ve had quite a turnover of members over the years, and some of our founder members are still with us. In recent years membership has stabilised at around twelve members, which is a convenient number because it means that each member has a shot at co-ordinating the monthly order about once a year. New members are welcome, though we’re not actively seeking to increase our numbers. We’ve been buying from Highland Wholefoods since they first opened for business 1989 and it’s always been a great pleasure working with them. We look forward to many more years of co-operation.