Un-chained
Raw food co-op finds growing niche
By BOB ROZYCKI

Tucked away in the back of a Buchanan warehouse complex, up some stairs and down a hallway is an unassuming steel door just like the other steel doors in the brick building. In large, block letters, this particular door identifies the occupant as RAW LIFE FOOD CO-OP.

What lies on the other side of the door is a no-frills “store” replete with fresh produce – mostly local and organic – along with frozen meats, grains, seeds and nonperishable goods.

Children play in a corner as parents move from the produce to the freezers to the grocery shelves.

This is no ordinary supermarket; these customers have a financial stake in sustaining and growing the store.

Convenience and cost spurred its creation: Not wanting to travel far for organic foods with two young children in the backseat of the car and not wanting to pay the high prices associated with chain stores.

The tireless founder of this enterprise is Nancy Durand-Lanson, the mother and driver who thought she could do better than the organic chains. She was pregnant with her first child when she moved with her husband from France 13 years ago to Ossining. During the latter stages of her pregnancy she wondered about proper nourishment for the baby.

“What am I going to feed the baby? Formula? That’s not food.”

She struck upon organic food as the alternative she would use in feeding her baby daughter. Upon the birth of her second daughter a few years later, she found feeding the growing family was getting too expensive buying from the natural food stores.

So, she did some research and began having organic food delivered to the family home. A friend joined her and then another friend and then a friend of a friend. Soon she was supplying some 30 people with organic and natural foods, all out of her kitchen. She needed room. The nascent co-op moved from her kitchen to the greenhouse and then to her basement where shelves were added.

“It was like living in a store.” And she doesn’t mean that in an endearing way.
With a growing membership base and the need for help, as well as the fact that some distributors refuse to deliver in residential areas, it was time to move the co-op.

She didn’t want to fracture the sense of community that had developed – think along the lines of the TV show “Cheers!” where everybody knows your name – nor did she want to make the site of the new co-op an onerous trip for anyone.

She was about to settle on a site in Croton-on-Hudson when a member suggested she take a look at space at the Westchester Industrial Complex, just north in Buchanan. It was just what the co-op needed. On Aug. 18, 2007, the members had a new home. From shelving to a computer, everything was donated by the members, Durand-Lanson said.

The timing and the souring of the national economy has been fortuitous for the cooperative; in less than a year it has grown from 30 to 80 members, adding about a member a week. While the co-op did have members coming from as far as Monroe and Hopewell Junction, membership is now concentrated in northern Westchester and Putnam counties.

Depending on whose economic projection one is reading, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to various think tanks, food prices are expected to rise anywhere from 5 percent to nearly 10 percent over the next few years. And they could go higher as the recent floods in the Midwest have taken their toll on crops.

But Durand-Lanson said the co-op’s markups are modest, capped at 35 percent for produce. But unlike the markups at traditional or chain stores, these profit margins are rolled back into the co-op to cover utility and rent costs.

Laurie Gershgorn, a co-op member, said, “To eat well you shouldn’t have to pay an arm and a leg.” And, she adds, it’s not just about reasonably priced food. “Small farms need to be supported. We need to support that lifestyle and economy.”

It’s difficult to get a handle on the number of true food co-ops in the region. Across the state, there are about 14 food co-ops that can be easily found on the Internet. But there are probably more, since Raw Life Food Co-op tends to fly under the radar and grows by just word of mouth.

To join Raw Life, a prospective member is charged a $30 fee and required to do some weekly food calculations. In addition to a grocery share of $50, a person has to determine his or her respective anticipated weekly produce purchase. And to keep costs down and be fair to the other members, a shopper has to do his best to stay within 10 percent of his produce share. If he buys more, others will get less. And if he buys less, the weekly produce costs will not be met.

It’s a fine balance, but Durand-Larson said she and the other buyers for the store have been hitting their marks. Any excess produce that is not sold with a couple of days is donated to the Jan Peek House, a homeless shelter, in Peekskill.

There’s no waste, she said.

One other aspect of the co-op is that members must volunteer to work at the store two hours every four weeks. The free labor spells lower prices, she says.

Not quite a year at the new site, Durand-Lanson is happy.

“It’s evolving. It’s coming out beautiful because it’s what the people want it to become,” she said. “We’re trying to be a one-stop shop.”

For more information, contact seraphin@bestweb.com.

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