Food buying groups wanted for survey
Volunteers from Food buying groups wanted to take part in a short survey
I am a user-centred web designer and researcher, conducting research for a new (non-profit) web project aimed at developing online tools and resources to help make the setting up and running of food co-ops (specifically buying groups) much easier.
As an existing food buying group, you’ve probably overcome most of the initial hurdles in terms of getting up and running, but it would be really valuable to hear about your experiences as they will help us design the right tools to hopefully make the barriers to entry for this type of enterprise as low as possible, so more communities will be encouraged to take this step.
Also, there may be certain things you wish you were able to do with technology, to help things run more smoothly, so any requests you have could potentially become part of the project, which you could then use, once we’ve finished developing it.
I’m part of a food buying group myself, and I know what type of problems we had to deal with, and what online and computer tools we’ve found helpful (and not so helpful!), but I’d be really interested to know whether other groups have had similar, or very different experiences.
If you would like to take part and share some of your experiences, please contact me – Mazy – at mazyjane@gmail.com with your email address and I will email you a short survey. The survey will also ask if you’re happy to be contacted again in the future for any ongoing research, should you be interested, otherwise you would not be contacted for anything further and your details would not be kept or passed on to any 3rd parties.
I look forward to hearing from you, and your help will be very much appreciated!
Mazy Burns mazyjane@gmail.com
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I worked at Honeysuckle Wholefood Co-operative Ltd for about thirty years and the first message I would like to send to buying groups is, “Support your local wholefood shop.” I think it is important to keep wholefood shops going. I used to find it very irritating when members of buying groups would come in for 2oz fresh yeast or a pot of yogurt
Chas as they had bought all their flour in bulk through the group. Even more irritating were those people who bought through a group and when the order was wrong wanted us to send the goods back to Suma.
Harumph!
Yes, I really think it’s great to have local Wholefood outlets too! However, we don’t have any Wholefood co-operative stores near where I live, and the Wholefood shops are REALLY expensive, making the cost of a weekly shop prohibitive to many people, meaning they go to the cheaper supermarkets instead. I think a balance can be struck with buying certain things in bulk (for us, it’s dry foods) and then going to the Wholefood shops and farmers market for fresh and refrigerated produce and baked / prepared foods. Also, a buying group could potentially evolve into a Wholefood co-op store one day, meaning there could be more – not less – as a result of people embarking on this endeavour, and in places (like where I live), where they are much needed. I don’t know why people were asking you to return goods to Suma tho – I can see how irritating that would be!!