Susan Moore !
Check out our interview below!
Sunshine: Hi Susan! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, maybe how you became interested in "organic foods"?
Susan: The idea of everyone having really healthy food has stirred my imagination. Around the mid-80s I got very interested in holistic health. I've learned more and more since 35 years ago and over time, I've come to the understanding that health is integrally linked to what you eat. Even though our medical culture tends to downplay this fact because they believe they can just fix something if it goes wrong, but I'd like to look at our body and our culture in a more holistic way. What do you need to be balanced, physically, emotionally, spiritually? The issues surrounding the physical dimension, food, is the very foundation of our being. Food and the way it affects our body is the primary matter that will determine your health.
So I became more and more aware over the years.
We have some books here at the Co-op, at our little library/borrowing shelf - but one of the most influential books that I had read was "The Healthiest Meals on Earth," and the other one is "Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth," both by the same author, Jonny Bowden. A very interesting point that he makes is that food not only provide nutrients for the body but specific foods can actually treat specific disease. Now, the FDA probably doesn't allow us to say that - but I'm gonna say it! Did you know that carrots can neutralize excess estrogen related hormonal imbalances? (Recent studies have found "excess estrogen" linked to stress: read more [here]) For young women who have menstrual cramps or problems that later cause women to get breast cancer, and even for men who are at risk for prostate cancer, if they eat 2 raw carrots a day, it will dissipate the excess estrogen in their body. That's just one minor example: Celery can lower blood pressure, and turmeric can cleanse your liver! The point is, healthy, clean, organic food are not only sustaining your body, but can actually heal your body.
Sunshine: Was there anything else that helped you achieve this perspective?
Susan: Call me an information junkie. I've always tried to look at the alternative and the holistic methods. There is tons of information out there if you try to search for it! I don't know, I've always been a person who just "questioned authority" - like that old hippie saying. It's always been hard for me to accept any fact without asking, "Is that really true? Who said so? Why did they say it and what's in it for them?" That's just the way my mind works. I need to be able to understand something before I get involved with anything.
Sunshine: So Susan, you are the manager of the Taos Food Co-op. How did the Co-op start and what experiences have brought you to where you are now?
Susan: Well my original idea of a "co-op," started 40 years ago. I was among a group of 6 young mothers and we had a food co-op just amongst each other. We all pitched in $20 each and every week 2 of us would drive down to the farmers market in Houston to buy boxes of vegetables and then divide it up! Very simple process.
When I moved to Taos, I thought something like that would be a good idea. Just so happened there was a group of people who were already trying to start this food co-op. I got on the board and we did group ordering together. There's not a lot of places to get fresh local produce except during the summertime, so we started with grains, rice and beans in bulk 25 or 50 pound sacks. We distributed it to everyone in the group with a small markup and that helped us get going in the beginning. About 6 months later we opened this retail store.
But back then I was on the board and I wasn't the manager yet. The board was a sort of managing committee and we had some volunteer cashiers. It was pretty small. At some point, people were making mistakes and the co-op was losing money. Some of the board member wanted to just close the store down. But I said "No, let me try managing it for a few months and see if I could turn it around and grow it." That was almost 2 years ago now. So...it's working!
Sunshine: Wow!
Susan: We are growing little by little. We started with a very small amount and our net percent is only 10%. But with that, we were able to gross about $60,000 last year. I mean, most grocery stores do that in a day, but we're giving people good prices on healthy food and we insist that this store be non-gmo only brands. So far so good.
Sunshine: Where does the food come from?
Susan: We have several different distributors. The primary one is Golden Organics, who we've been with from the beginning. It is a wholesaler near Denver CO. The owner is very interesting. He is a pro at traveling all over the world, and he finds the best buys on organically raised food. Most of it is certified organic. They are close to us since Denver to Taos is about 5 hours. Golden Organics is where we get most of the dried goods and bulk oils.
La Montanita is another. They are a successful co-op with a billion dollar a year business that has its headquarters in Albuquerque. We get quite a bit of our food from them. We also order from Frontier Co-op, they are another co-op that handles over 300 brands of toiletries and culinary and medicinal herbs. And then there's United Natural Foods Inc (UNFI) that we order from sometimes too.
We carry some local producers like Matt's Quinoa Cookies, Taos Roasters Coffee, and Taos Mountain Energy Bar. I also just found out about a nearby tea company and I want to start ordering from. Very soon, there will be a local company making bottled Chai, so when they are ready we're gonna be stocking their drinks here.
Sunshine: So I heard that in the Spring you have a farmers market on the back porch?
Susan: Yes, Spring, Summer, and Fall. The official Taos Farmers Market is much larger but they charge the farmers about $20 a week. Thinking about it, if you go there with a bunch of carrots and lettuce and you only make $60, that initial charge takes out a huge chunk of your earnings! Sure, some of the vendors have a big operation and they do a lot at the market but smaller farmers can't really afford that. We don't charge the farmers anything at our market. We let the farmers use our back porch for free. They get to keep everything. If they decide to leave some of their produce with us afterward, we do take a small percentage but I think this approach creates a lot of benefits.
For one thing, all the money that the customers spend goes straight to the farm. Number 2, the farmers have an outlet that they don't necessarily have to be committed to. If they can, they can come out and sell their things. Number 3, it encourages the farmers to grow more. If Taos ever had a food crisis or experienced some difficult times - which is quite possible here in our small town, the co-op would have the lines of communication with those farmers to keep the food coming if possible. And lastly, it's just fun, let's not forget that!
Sunshine: Susan, how is the Taos Food Co-op different from a typical organic food market in town? Perhaps you can explain more about the cooperative business model you are working with here?
Susan: By definition, a co-op is a type of corporation owned by its members. It varies depending on the organization but once a cooperative becomes profitable, then members can get a dividend based on either their initial investment or their purchases throughout the year. A conventional corporation however, is owned by stockholders and only those investors profit from the company. The emphasis there is profit and the bottom line, whereas co-ops have an interest in their stakeholders, their members, their vendors, their customers. Many co-ops have socially responsible missions in addition to making the profit that can grow the organization. And that's what we are doing here with the Taos Food Co-op.
Sunshine: Sounds good to me! You mentioned you've dipped into farming yourself and that you have chickens in your backyard! Can you tell us more about that?
Susan: Yes I've got a little chicken house. I have 5 and used to have more but the dogs and coyotes got to them, sadly. The ones that are still with me are laying eggs, even in the winter. I feed them organic feed that I buy from right here, at the Taos Food Co-op.
I did try farming. I've some experience with drip irrigation where the water goes directly to the roots of the plants. I used to rent a plot of land in town. But to be honest, it is a lot of work! Weeding and maintenance requires a lot of attention and since I've become manager at the Co-op, I haven't been able to pursue it as much as I'd like to. I still love the absolute magic of growing seeds. To put a little seed into the ground, water it, and watch what happens just proves that it's not that hard to grow your own food. You do have to pay attention to it but the amount of work required for what you get in return is amazing to me. With some of the more contemporary farming methods, it's amazing what you can get with just 100 square feet of land - a 10 x 10 plot.
Sunshine: What could we look forward to at the Taos Food Co-op?
Susan: We are in the process of trying to get a loan and it's gonna cost about $2300. Once we have more refrigeration, we can have more semi-perishable items. We don't stock any fresh produce now besides microgreens that 2 of our volunteers bring in on Saturdays, but hopefully it'll bring in more people when we do.
Sunshine: Is there any advice you can share for people who are considering opening a co-op in their community?
Susan: I started with a really old-fashioned idea of a food co-op. And we're more like that, we are an old-fashioned food co-op that is volunteer run. Many co-ops today are full fledged professional co-ops with paid staff and experienced grocers. How did they get to do that? Well, they get investors and memberships before they open. That way they aren't starting on a shoe-string budget like we did! For example, nearby Los Alamos co-op acquired about 2 million dollars before they even opened. You don't have to acquire as much as they did but it doesn't hurt to have a couple hundred thousand dollars to invest in the initial opening.
There are many different ways of doing it. There are a number of cooperative development foundations that will provide training, a grant for a feasibility study, and give you a guideline on how to get started. We didn't do any of this, although we probably should have. There are a lot of resources and help out there for people who want to start a cooperative. I really see this as a business model of the future because people are tired of the current economic approach where profit comes before everything else. The way we're gonna shift our world culture is through more socially responsible businesses, where it is member and employee owned. I see more and more young people demanding profit sharing and stock options as part of their benefit package in a company. When we start to get companies that are 30-50% owned by the employees, we're gonna see the real change in direction. So I'm really looking forward to people waking up and seeing that we can do it a little more humanely.
Sunshine: Absolutely. Thank you for being such an inspiration to us in the current generation.
Susan: Yes, of course. Start getting together with like-minded people, and get a good board going. Everybody will tell you to have a good lawyer, a good accountant but we didn't have any of that and we still don't. What we have is a core group and we keep each other inspired. Go out there and solicit memberships, solicit investors, and you'll see how much help is out there to get you to your vision.
Susan: Call me an information junkie. I've always tried to look at the alternative and the holistic methods. There is tons of information out there if you try to search for it! I don't know, I've always been a person who just "questioned authority" - like that old hippie saying. It's always been hard for me to accept any fact without asking, "Is that really true? Who said so? Why did they say it and what's in it for them?" That's just the way my mind works. I need to be able to understand something before I get involved with anything.
Also, one of the things that captured my imagination years ago is the Maslow "Heirarchy of Needs." I talked about this during my presentation at the Taos Pecha Kucha event just last week. Maslow was a psychologist in the 1940s. A lot of people jumped on his ideas and used it to understand motivation. Although, he didn't intend for people to use it that way. Maslow was just showing that unless people have the basic physical needs, they are not going to move up the chart.
The basic needs are: food, air, water, shelter. Then you move up to safety, community, love, and self-actualization. I've always thought that the government, or any big corporation for that matter, would want to look at what these basic needs are to ensure that people have those basic needs fulfilled. Unfortunately, I think like many others, that's not really the concern for them.
Sunshine: So Susan, you are the manager of the Taos Food Co-op. How did the Co-op start and what experiences have brought you to where you are now?
Susan: Well my original idea of a "co-op," started 40 years ago. I was among a group of 6 young mothers and we had a food co-op just amongst each other. We all pitched in $20 each and every week 2 of us would drive down to the farmers market in Houston to buy boxes of vegetables and then divide it up! Very simple process.
When I moved to Taos, I thought something like that would be a good idea. Just so happened there was a group of people who were already trying to start this food co-op. I got on the board and we did group ordering together. There's not a lot of places to get fresh local produce except during the summertime, so we started with grains, rice and beans in bulk 25 or 50 pound sacks. We distributed it to everyone in the group with a small markup and that helped us get going in the beginning. About 6 months later we opened this retail store.
But back then I was on the board and I wasn't the manager yet. The board was a sort of managing committee and we had some volunteer cashiers. It was pretty small. At some point, people were making mistakes and the co-op was losing money. Some of the board member wanted to just close the store down. But I said "No, let me try managing it for a few months and see if I could turn it around and grow it." That was almost 2 years ago now. So...it's working!
Sunshine: Wow!
Susan: We are growing little by little. We started with a very small amount and our net percent is only 10%. But with that, we were able to gross about $60,000 last year. I mean, most grocery stores do that in a day, but we're giving people good prices on healthy food and we insist that this store be non-gmo only brands. So far so good.
Susan: We have several different distributors. The primary one is Golden Organics, who we've been with from the beginning. It is a wholesaler near Denver CO. The owner is very interesting. He is a pro at traveling all over the world, and he finds the best buys on organically raised food. Most of it is certified organic. They are close to us since Denver to Taos is about 5 hours. Golden Organics is where we get most of the dried goods and bulk oils.
La Montanita is another. They are a successful co-op with a billion dollar a year business that has its headquarters in Albuquerque. We get quite a bit of our food from them. We also order from Frontier Co-op, they are another co-op that handles over 300 brands of toiletries and culinary and medicinal herbs. And then there's United Natural Foods Inc (UNFI) that we order from sometimes too.
We carry some local producers like Matt's Quinoa Cookies, Taos Roasters Coffee, and Taos Mountain Energy Bar. I also just found out about a nearby tea company and I want to start ordering from. Very soon, there will be a local company making bottled Chai, so when they are ready we're gonna be stocking their drinks here.
Sunshine: So I heard that in the Spring you have a farmers market on the back porch?
For one thing, all the money that the customers spend goes straight to the farm. Number 2, the farmers have an outlet that they don't necessarily have to be committed to. If they can, they can come out and sell their things. Number 3, it encourages the farmers to grow more. If Taos ever had a food crisis or experienced some difficult times - which is quite possible here in our small town, the co-op would have the lines of communication with those farmers to keep the food coming if possible. And lastly, it's just fun, let's not forget that!
Susan: By definition, a co-op is a type of corporation owned by its members. It varies depending on the organization but once a cooperative becomes profitable, then members can get a dividend based on either their initial investment or their purchases throughout the year. A conventional corporation however, is owned by stockholders and only those investors profit from the company. The emphasis there is profit and the bottom line, whereas co-ops have an interest in their stakeholders, their members, their vendors, their customers. Many co-ops have socially responsible missions in addition to making the profit that can grow the organization. And that's what we are doing here with the Taos Food Co-op.
Sunshine: Sounds good to me! You mentioned you've dipped into farming yourself and that you have chickens in your backyard! Can you tell us more about that?
Susan: Yes I've got a little chicken house. I have 5 and used to have more but the dogs and coyotes got to them, sadly. The ones that are still with me are laying eggs, even in the winter. I feed them organic feed that I buy from right here, at the Taos Food Co-op.
I did try farming. I've some experience with drip irrigation where the water goes directly to the roots of the plants. I used to rent a plot of land in town. But to be honest, it is a lot of work! Weeding and maintenance requires a lot of attention and since I've become manager at the Co-op, I haven't been able to pursue it as much as I'd like to. I still love the absolute magic of growing seeds. To put a little seed into the ground, water it, and watch what happens just proves that it's not that hard to grow your own food. You do have to pay attention to it but the amount of work required for what you get in return is amazing to me. With some of the more contemporary farming methods, it's amazing what you can get with just 100 square feet of land - a 10 x 10 plot.
Susan: We are in the process of trying to get a loan and it's gonna cost about $2300. Once we have more refrigeration, we can have more semi-perishable items. We don't stock any fresh produce now besides microgreens that 2 of our volunteers bring in on Saturdays, but hopefully it'll bring in more people when we do.
Sunshine: Is there any advice you can share for people who are considering opening a co-op in their community?
Susan: I started with a really old-fashioned idea of a food co-op. And we're more like that, we are an old-fashioned food co-op that is volunteer run. Many co-ops today are full fledged professional co-ops with paid staff and experienced grocers. How did they get to do that? Well, they get investors and memberships before they open. That way they aren't starting on a shoe-string budget like we did! For example, nearby Los Alamos co-op acquired about 2 million dollars before they even opened. You don't have to acquire as much as they did but it doesn't hurt to have a couple hundred thousand dollars to invest in the initial opening.
There are many different ways of doing it. There are a number of cooperative development foundations that will provide training, a grant for a feasibility study, and give you a guideline on how to get started. We didn't do any of this, although we probably should have. There are a lot of resources and help out there for people who want to start a cooperative. I really see this as a business model of the future because people are tired of the current economic approach where profit comes before everything else. The way we're gonna shift our world culture is through more socially responsible businesses, where it is member and employee owned. I see more and more young people demanding profit sharing and stock options as part of their benefit package in a company. When we start to get companies that are 30-50% owned by the employees, we're gonna see the real change in direction. So I'm really looking forward to people waking up and seeing that we can do it a little more humanely.
Sunshine: Absolutely. Thank you for being such an inspiration to us in the current generation.
Susan: Yes, of course. Start getting together with like-minded people, and get a good board going. Everybody will tell you to have a good lawyer, a good accountant but we didn't have any of that and we still don't. What we have is a core group and we keep each other inspired. Go out there and solicit memberships, solicit investors, and you'll see how much help is out there to get you to your vision.
"The Taos Food Coop is a buying club and retail organic food store, offering members and customers the best possible prices on wholesome healthy foods."
Located at:
314 Paseo Del Pueblo Norte, Suite G
Taos New Mexico, 87571
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-PEACE~*!
