SuperCoop Berlin eG

The way we buy our food now means that we often don't know where the food is comes from, how it is grown, or how the people who make it are treated. Living in cities often makes it harder to have this connection to our food.

However, we are often not just disconnected from our food, but also from each other. We live in a society with extreme inequality, affecting every aspect of our daily lives, including the food we eat.

When we do not have enough information about these problems it is difficult to solve them. When we do not work together it is impossible.

That's why we decided to create SuperCoop - a supermarket that belongs to us, the members! Now we can bring ourselves closer to both of these important aspects of our lives: our food and our neighbors.

Just like a regular supermarket, we will have a lot of different products, but...

• We offer good, healthy and fairly made food at affordable prices.
• Our supermarket model depends on us making decisions together based on clear information about products and our community in order to help everyone benefit.
• We see business as a tool to improve the wellbeing of people and our environment. In other words, profits are the means, not the end.

But how exactly does it work? At SuperCoop all members have 3 roles:

Coworkers

Every member commits to work 3 hours every 4 weeks for SuperCoop. Members choose when they work and what kind of work they do (i.e. attending the cash register, stocking goods, etc.) This lowers the overall cost of running the supermarket, which then lowers the prices of products on the shelves too.

The idea is that everybody contributes, and everybody benefits. You cannot pay more and work less. We add all of our power together through cooperation and create a community in which we are all an active part of making a change.

Co-owners

SuperCoop is owned by its members, and you can become one now directly via Startnext! (See the rewards: "Become a Member" or "Become a Supporting Member.")

To become a member, all you need to do is buy a share for the cost of 100€, and pay a 10€ entrance fee (no monthly fees). You choose how to pay: all at once or by installments over the period of two years. We are also working on creating a solidarity fund so that anyone may join regardless of income. If you choose to end your membership, you get the 100€ back. Only the entrance fee is non-refundable. Read more here.

Every member has the option of attending the Plenum meeting, where we all can vote on important topics at SuperCoop. We each have 1 vote (regardless of how many shares you own), and we all can raise topics to discuss. Some examples include: deciding what to do with the money we make, guidelines for how we choose products, and the entrance fee.

Customers

As customers, we have access to a wide range of products. Our focus is on regional, healthy (organic) and fair products, but we will also include conventional products to make sure we all can afford to shop at SuperCoop.

We also have transparency. This means we share as much information as possible about:

• How food is made
• How it gets to us
• How we decide what its price will be
• How we decide what to do with the profits

We do this in many ways: signs and labels in the store, offering translations, our community wiki, as well as our website. Check out our FAQ to find out more!

SuperCoop is more than a supermarket. It is a place where people who may have never otherwise met each other can connect, work together and learn from one another.

Each active member brings with them new possibilities for what we can achieve together, and also how we can support each other. For example, in NYC they voted to offer child care services in the supermarket. We hope to do the same, but in order to get there we need more members!

Does it sound too good to be true? We promise you it’s not! Just take a look at Park Slope Food Coop (17,000 members and operating for 45 years) and La Louve (7,000 members and operating for 5 years).

SuperCoop is for its members, by its members. It is for Wedding and all of Berlin.

We want to connect with our neighbors and build the supermarket we all want to see on our street corner. We want a supermarket that offers:

• Products we can trust (because we know what’s in them and how they were made)
• People we can trust (because the supermarket is run by us!)
• Prices which are transparent & fair to producers and consumers (because we bring them closer together)
• Visibility of what happens to the profits (because we decide where they go)

From producers to consumers, SuperCoop is for everyone looking to make a change in our food system.

We support producers and suppliers who treat their employees fairly and protect the environment, both regionally and globally.

Just like we have been inspired by the example of other coops, we also hope to inspire more communities to do the same. Step by step the movement of cooperative supermarkets keeps growing, and so too does its impact.

Because you want to…

• meet new people and learn new skills and perspectives--not only through the work you do at the supermarket, but from the people you work with too!
• shop without the headache of trying to figure out which is the best option for you and your loved ones, or having to decide between healthy options and affordable ones!
• Have more influence over the selection of products at your supermarket, and also who your money goes to
• support producers and suppliers working to meet our current needs in a way that does not threaten the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (economic, social, and environmental)!
• help us create a real alternative to how we buy our groceries!

Do you also want these things? Becoming a member and/or choosing a reward is just one click away!

We need a minimum of 500 members to get started and open our shop in Wedding this summer, along with delivery to pick-up points in Neukölln and Friedrichshain. We are already 150 strong, and now we need 350 more to close the gap!

If we reach our goal of 500 active members and 50.000€, we can:

• sign the loan offer of 90.000€ from the GLS bank,
• finance renovations & equipment costs (approx. 50.000€),
• expand our assortment (40.000€),
• rent 250 m² of store space in Berlin-Wedding (Osram-Höfe) and
• run the shop with convenient opening hours (at least four days a week) with a broad basic assortment from the time of our opening

What happens if we raise more money and/or reach more members?

Our goal is to ultimately become a community of thousands, just like the cooperatives which inspired us in New York and Paris!

With more members on board, we can expand our assortment faster and create even more pick-up points in different parts of the city. The more pick-ups we have, the more space we also need in our shop in Wedding for packing and preparation. All additional funds will help us cover these costs (incl. delivery) from the beginning.

So where will the next pick-up point be?

That’s up to you! We need at least 25 members in order for a pick-up point to be financially sustainable. So gather up your neighbors, join in and get a pick-up point started near you!