by Jon Steinman, author of Grocery Story: The Promise of Food Co-ops in the Age of Grocery Giants

Orcas Food Co-op (Eastsound, WA) – It’s no secret that retailers pay heavy credit card fees and Orcas Food Co-op implemented a unique program to keep more of the community’s food dollars on the island. Around 2% of every dollar leaves the community through credit card fees. Re+coop is the name for the co-op’s house charge account system available to members only. House charge accounts allow members to charge purchases and pay the balance later. The co-op uses weekly ACH bank transfers as payment. In the past year alone, 358 members (25% of active members) spent $800K with their charge accounts, helping recoup more than $10,000 that the co-op would have otherwise paid in credit card fees! The success of the program has led to the co-op returning 1% of purchases through the program back to those members using it. https://orcasfood.coop/recoop/

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This article is an except from “Who Owns Your Grocery Store” Report Q3 2021  by Jon Steinman.