Dear cooperators,
Food Co-op Initiatve proudly presented two awards to *THREE* outstanding food co-ops at CCMA last month. The Bill Gessner Startup Food Co-op Award is awarded to a late stage organizing startup that has demonstrated:
- an effective use of the most up-to-date best practices throughout their organizing
- strong community support
- realistic prospects of post-open sustainability
This award was created in honor of Bill Gessner, by his friends and colleagues, in the food co-op movement.
Congratulations to our 2026 Bill Gessner Award winner, Charles River Food Co-op in Waltham, MA! 
Since they began organizing in 2021, Charles River Food Co-op invested their energy into understanding startup best practices and became robust participants in peer learning. After completing their Stage 2 feasibility study work, they are launching work to identify the right site for their future 6k – 10k sq ft store!
The FCI Startup of the Year Award honors a startup that displays notable excellence in one or more of four areas:
- community organizing
- strong & viable business planning
- bold & effective innovation in co-op development
- implementing new approaches to meet the needs of communities under-served by food co-ops
The “third wave” of startup food organizing, which emerged from the mid-aughts with the goal of replicating the natural food store model and success of “second wave” food co-ops, has crested and is being joined by a surging “fourth wave” of food cooperation that is focused on serving both remote rural and historically redlined communities that are organizing their own solutions to systemic loss of grocery access. To acknowledge this historic moment, FCI awarded one “third wave” Startup of the Year, and one “fourth wave” Startup of the Year for 2026.
Congratulations to SunCoast Market Co-op in Imperial Beach, CA and South Philly Food Co-op in Philadelphia, PA for winning Startup of the Year!
With limited access to public transportation, 73% of the residents of Imperial Beach, CA have to shop outside of their community to meet their basic grocery needs. This majority-Latine community organized to build their own food access solution, and SunCoast Market Co-op won many grants and awards along the way for their powerful community organizing work.
South Philly Food Co-op (SPFC) opened in 2020 in a site that the experts feared would not work, but through research on co-ops in similarly dense, urban communities, SPFC’s leadership decided their co-op could thrive there. The results speak for themselves – by the end of their fifth year of operations, they were achieving their market study’s year 10 sales projections!
w members with the experience, vision, and expertise to elevate their work and to lead the plan’s implementation. We are proud to welcome four new cooperative leaders to the Food Co-op Initiative Board of Directors as of June 2026 for three year terms:
