Dear cooperators and friends,
Co-creation is central to cooperation. It is the “special sauce” that takes a business model and makes it a movement.
‘Co-Creating the Future’ was the theme of the 2025 Up & Coming Conference co-organized by FCI, which is a national conference for the startup food co-op movement. The conference put the co-creation sauce into action, leaning into the belief that solutions built together are the most powerful, and often revelatory.
In the U.S., since 2020, small family farms are closing at an alarming rate, food access is worsening and chain grocery store closures are rapidly increasing, which is leading to a surge of communities wanting to organize a cooperative grocery solution.
At the same time, the cost of building a new cooperative grocery store has risen over 50% since 2020, making it harder to find a viable path to opening a co-op grocery store.
Thursday afternoon at the conference, FCI brought together food co-op experts and cooperative funders to learn from and brainstorm with presenters from Argus Farm Stop, Food Club Network and IGA. We discussed the paths each organization took to helping people get food into their communities and the mutual challenges we’re facing in these efforts.
Co-creation was brought into the remainder of the conference as well, with a set of breakout sessions created by attendees with experienced facilitators to help them with the process, and then presented live to their peers.
One of the co-creation sessions, ‘The GM Crisis,’ was about the expectations of General Managers (GMs) vs their actual capacity, as well as the growing gap in the number of GMs needed versus those available. The room was filled with co-op GMs, startup boards members, support providers, and consultants, all grappling with this challenge that impacts both startups and established co-ops.
FCI has served the startup food co-op movement for 20 years, individually and in collaboration with other organizations. The FCI team and the staff of the Development Cooperative (DC) of National Co+op Grocers (NCG) met in person this month to share our approaches, learn from one another, and align on how we will work together to support startup food co-ops in 2026.
We also met with four food co-ops in the Chicago area: Dill Pickle Food Co-op (opened 2009), Wild Onion Market (opened 2024), Prairie Food Co-op (opened July 2025) and Southside Market & Cafe (opened this month!) to learn from their current operations, their successes, and their unique challenges as startup stores. GMs, staff and board members at each store provided notes and recommendations for the additional support the next generation of startups can benefit from, which both orgs will be incorporating into our work.
No one person, organization or perspective can fully understand and implement solutions to the challenges before us as communities and cooperatives.
At FCI we believe that when we share the challenge and trust and lean on each other, we can co-create paths forward that will bring good things for years to come.
In cooperation,
The FCI team
