Press Release: Oklahoma Food Cooperative appoints new president

At its August meeting, the board of directors of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative appointed Lisa Weissenbuehler president, replacing Chelsey Simpson who resigned due to a move out-of-state.

A descendent of Oklahoma pioneers and a native of Tulsa, Weissenbuehler and her husband David were among the first 200 coop members. She has served as general manager for the co-op and as site manager for the co-op’s northwest Oklahoma City  pick-up location. She has also served as producer assistance technician and been a member of the Standards Committee, the Treasury Team, the Producer Care Team and the board of directors.

The Oklahoma Food Co-op enables customers to buy directly from Oklahoma farmers and artisans using the co-op’s website, www.oklahomafood.coop. The co-op offers roughly 40 pick-up sites across the state, including several locations in the Oklahoma City area. Eighty percent each dollar spent at the Oklahoma Food Co-op goes to an Oklahoma producer.

Weissenbuehler says co-op membership is the most convenient way for her to shop for local food and non-food items.

“The Oklahoma Food Cooperative has made it possible for us to shop online and pick our order up at a site close to our house,” she says. “We buy all our meat and dairy products from the co-op as well as all of our laundry soap, bath soap, shampoo, lip balm, moisturizer, cosmetics and even greeting cards. Not only are we making a decision to support Oklahoma producers and keep precious dollars in the local economy, I also have the comfort of knowing EVERY ingredient that goes into each product.”

The co-op has experienced rapid growth since it was founded in 2003, and is poised to expand into new markets in the next two quarters.

“The Oklahoma Food Co-op is on track to facilitate over $800,000 in sales this year and has over 4,000 members—that’s huge considering we were only founded eight years ago,” says Quentin Bomgardner, the coop’s vice president for customers. “I am confident that Lisa is the right person to lead us forward.”

To join the co-op or for more information, visit www.oklahomafood.coop.

OFC board president resigns; interim president elected

Dear members,

On Sunday I did something very difficult: I resigned as president of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative. After 18 months of job hunting, my husband Jeff accepted teaching positions at two universities in New York City, so at the end of this week I will be packing up a U-haul and driving across the country. Since I work from home for the National Farm to School Network, my job will move with me to New York, and I will be able to continue my work in the field of local food systems.

Chelsey Simpson

Please know that I’m not leaving Oklahoma because I looked around and found it lacking. I truly believe that Oklahoma and Oklahoma City in particular is one of THE most exciting places to be right now. There are more things to do than ever before, and our local food community is growing by leaps and bounds. But more than that, Oklahoma is a place where you can still dig in, get a little dirt under your nails and make change happen in a relatively short amount of time. Who wants to be a food activist in New York City or San Francisco? Put me in the trenches! Give me that red, clay soil! Send me to No Man’s Land!

But Oklahoma needs you; the co-op needs you. One of the defining moments of my life came when I realized that the phase, “Someone should DO something,” was addressed to me directly. Every month someone needs to help wash coolers and sort food. Someone needs to unload the trucks and drive the routes. Someone needs to make the commitment to buy more local food despite the cost. Someone needs to be president. I am someone. So are you. Together we are doing something amazing, but we aren’t done yet.

The co-op’s strategic plan spells out some big changes for the next year, and I wish I could be part of them. But I leave you in capable hands. The board elected Lisa Weissenbuehler to serve as interim president until the annual meeting in January when the membership will elect someone to serve out my term. Lisa is a longtime member and volunteer who has also served as the co-op’s general manager, so she is more than qualified to lead the board.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve as president, and thank you to everyone I have worked with the past five years. Today, I count many of you as friends simply because your bread has passed through my hands and we have shared the excitement of fresh eggs and real tomatoes. And this will always bring joy to my heart.

Chelsey Simpson

And the survey says….

Happy August, members!

As I mentioned in one of my last messages, I will be sharing information with you in each newsletter about the co-op’s new strategic plan. To give the plan context and better explain the process that went into developing it, I want to share the results of our members survey with you in more detail. As you probably remember, the co-op worked with the Food and Agricultural Product Center (FAPC) at OSU to create a survey that would help us determine how members feel about the co-op, why some members have stopped ordering and how to target future efforts and expenditures.

Survey Results Report

A detailed report by FAPC is attached above (skip to page 13 if you are in a hurry or like tables), but here are some of my observations about the data and one key chart that the board was most interested in:

For me, the take-away from this survey is that people are largely happy with the co-op, they just want MORE. More order/delivery opportunities, more products. As you can see on the table below (click to expand), there are three things that have kept people from ordering that we should be able to improve on without great complications: 1) the time/location of pick-up was inconvenient (we have already addressed this in part by adding a Saturday pick up site in OKC, but I think this also points toward holding a second delivery day at some point);  2) people simply forget to order (we have started calling members who open a basket but don’t put products in it, and we are searching for other solutions);  3) desired products are out of stock (we need targeted producer recruiting and a system that is more desirable for those producers – both items we address with the strategic plan). Our website is another area of needed improvement, but luckily that is already in the works.

The other big story to come out of this survey is how many other places our members are buying local/specialty products. 71 percent of people shop at specialty food stores and 66 percent shop at farmers markets. 26 percent are involved with a CSA. How do we capture more of this market share? Offer more opportunities to order.

Again, let me say that I think this is mostly GOOD news. We are offering something that people want and they are pleased with our delivery, but they want more. I think our focus needs to be on adding a second delivery day, recruiting producers (hello, eggs!) and finding the best way to remind people to order.

They attached paper is long, so I will leave you with a few other important nuggets of information that I think we should keep in mind.

- The people responding to this survey (and thus the people we engage with and sell to most) are women by an overwhelming majority (82 %).

- 70 percent of the responding consumer members live in an urban area. We need to relate to them and communicate with them accordingly.

- More than 60 percent have a household income under $100,000.

- 85 percent of responders said “local” was their top priority and reason for joining

- 90 percent of consumer responders access the internet daily via a high-speed connection

- The majority of people don’t want more communication from us and they don’t want less. So for most people, we are hitting the mark.

- 75 percent of producers find us by word-of-mouth compared to 47 percent of consumers. 29 percent of consumers find us with an internet search. This is why our website – and especially our home page and basic information – is such a huge priority.

Well, if you read all that, you win 10 points. If you read the attached PDF you win 100. Honestly, though, staying informed about co-op issues is one of the duties of membership and I truly appreciate all of you who stay on top of things!

Chelsey Simpson

President                                                                    

Welcome to our new blog!

Hello members and friends! We have big plans for this blog over time, including recipe features, volunteer profiles and virtual farm visits, but in the meantime we will use the blog to post content that is too long for our regular newsletter.

Enjoy, and stay tuned!