Food Conspiracy is a term applied to a movement begun in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

in 1968 in which households pooled their resources to buy food in bulk from farmers and small wholesalers and distribute it cheaply. The name came to describe a loose network of

autonomous In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ow ...

collectives which shared common values and, in many cases, suppliers.Rosen, Laurel; McGrane, Sally
The Revolution Will Not Be Catered: How Bay Area food collectives of the `60s set the stage for today's sophisticated tastes.
''San Francisco Chronicle.'' 8 March 2000. Many participants were seeking an alternative to

supermarkets A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limit ...

and became involved to obtain direct control of the quality and type of food they were sourcing, with a strong focus on

wholefoods A plant-based diet is a diet consisting mostly or entirely of plant-based foods. Plant-based diets encompass a wide range of dietary patterns that contain low amounts of animal products and high amounts of plant products such as vegetables, fru ...

and

organic produce Organic food, ecological food or biological food are food and drinks produced by methods complying with the standards of organic farming. Standards vary worldwide, but organic farming features practices that cycle resources, promote ecological ...

. The adoption of the name 'food conspiracy' has been described by a participant as a "response to the

Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

- Agnew rhetoric of the time (which) had us all as communist conspirators against the state, the war and public morality." Many leaflets circulated encouraging participation and a short how-to guide was published, 'The Great Food Buying Conspiracy', which offered a route map to sourcing fresh fruit and vegetables, cheese and organic dry goods. For fresh produce, monies would be pooled at a weekly order meeting and volunteers would then make an early morning visit to the wholesale vegetable market in

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

to buy boxes and crates of organically grown fruits and vegetables. These would be returned to a central location, often a members' home, and made ready for collection later in the morning. In this way, members could achieve savings of up to 50%.Berkeley People's Offic
The Great Food Buying Conspiracy
''Mother Earth News.'' July 1970. A key feature of each Food Conspiracy group was staying small, a situation maintained by groups splitting when reaching a certain size rather than keep on growing. Thus, the initial

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

conspiracy, established in 1969, had become eight distinct groups within less than a year and, by 1974, there were 60 conspiracies in the city with around 2,000 members. The scale of the groups tended to help ensure a high level of direct involvement in the practical roles required for its operation. Indeed, The Food Conspiracy Cookbook (1974) argues that "Conspiracies only work if all who benefit take an active part in its working and decisions." In addition to investigating potential suppliers, key operating tasks would include compiling a listing of available goods, collating member orders, receiving and recording payments, picking up produce from growers, hosting deliveries from wholesalers, checking-in deliveries and weighing and assembling individual orders ready for collection by members. A group would collectively decide whether or not to apply a modest fee or add-on to build a small surplus to use for shared benefit. Over time, some food conspiracies went on to formalise as

food cooperative A food cooperative or food co-op is a food distribution outlet organized as a cooperative, rather than a private or public company. Food cooperatives are usually consumer cooperatives, where the decisions regarding the production and distribution of ...

bulk Bulk can refer to: Industry * Bulk cargo * Bulk liquids * Bulk mail * Bulk material handling * Bulk pack, packaged bulk materials/products * Bulk purchasing * Baking * Bulk fermentation, the period after mixing when dough is left alone to ferm ...

and

natural foods Natural food and all-natural food are terms in food labeling and marketing with several definitions, often implying foods that are not manufactured by processing. In some countries like the United Kingdom, the term "natural" is defined and regu ...

distributors or developed as larger buying groups with a paid organiser. However, the conspiracy model - then and now - seeks to provide food to members by accomplishing all needed tasks collectively, without paid staff or a store front presence. The trading name "Food Conspiracy" is used by a long-established wholefood co-op in

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

which originated in 1971 with local political activists who formed a buying club to address difficulties in finding natural and organic food. The following year, it opened a storefront and since 1974 has operated from its present home at 412 N. Fourth Avenue. Originally run as a workers' collective, it later developed toward a

consumer cooperative A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a fo ...

model. Today it provides a full-service food market, open to the public and with approximately 1,800 member-owners.Ziniu Che
"Food Conspiracy Co-op: innovating for 40 years"
Arizona Daily Star, 18 February 2011. Retrieved 2011-05-31.

References

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External links

Food Conspiracy (Tucson) web site
Food cooperatives in the United States Food and drink in the San Francisco Bay Area

References

Further reading

External links