Food Co-ops - how is yours run?

[Thurston Garden]

I have been lucky enough to find a local food co-op which buys from a wholefoods wholesaler. It's a small outfit with about a dozen members. I have only had one order so far but think it's a great idea. The co-op lady emails out periodically for orders, she collates them, places the order, pays the supplier and sorts out the large delivery into individual orders. Members collect from her house and pay on collection.

No I wondered at the start - what is in it for the co-op lady? (I do realise there does not NEED to be anything in it for her...) It's a lot of work and responsibility, even for a small group. Only one person needs not to pay or collect and it's a huge issue for the co-op lady.

Is anyone else (I know there is a neeps co-op) part of a similar group? How does it work? The co-op lady now wants to add an admin fee to each order. Probably a reasonable request given the work involved. How do other co-ops operate?

TG

[grahamhobbs]

This is a good question, my OH did the same sort of thing with a well known cooperative wholefood wholesaler, initially it was just for family memebers and then friends. She didn't charge and would collect the goods from the lorry (we were friends with the lorry driver and would collect the stuff when he parked up for the night and we'd all go for a drink), then with the stuff in our van she would distribute to everyone.
Now this is ok for family, but soon gets out of hand. Even you you say people have to collect from you, you still have to collate the orders, deal with the money, receive the goods, store them, divide and sort them, etc, etc.
Fortunately in some ways, this all stopped because the wholesaler kept increasing the minimum order so the group of friends would have had to become bigger and bigger.
Given the discount that buying from a wholesaler provides, there must be a margin in which the organiser can reasonably charge, either an administration fee or a percentage on top to cover their labour and trouble.