Real Pickles

Northeast Grown, 100% organic, fermented & raw pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, kvass, and hot sauce

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CO-OPERATIVES

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Creating Social Change, Together

The extraordinary political events taking place in our country are affecting us deeply here at Real Pickles Co-operative, as they are for so many others. They highlight how far we have to go to build the just, democratic, and sustainable society we wish to see.  We are reminded why all of us here take Real Pickles’ social mission so seriously, and why we must continue to work as hard as we can in pursuit of it.  It is also now as clear as ever that we cannot do this work alone.

One essential lesson of the 2016 presidential election – among many others – seems to be that our economic system is truly not working for many millions of Americans, and that this fact cannot be ignored. The Dow Jones may be up, the economy may be growing, corporate profits and the 1% may be doing great. But many are being left behind. Real change is needed, and the big question is what kind of change will we work toward?

At Real Pickles, we are committed to creating positive social change based on an inclusive vision that prioritizes equality, justice, health, democracy, and sustainability.  We are seeking to build a system that offers real opportunity to all people to live healthy and fulfilling lives.  This means moving away from corporate capitalism and toward an economy where small, community-oriented businesses are the norm.  It means making hatred and discrimination things of the past.  And – urgently – it means doing whatever we can to avoid disastrous climate change.

Thankfully, we are far from alone in these efforts.  A strong example is the New Economy Coalition (of which we are a proud member), whose vision is “a new economy…that meets human needs, enhances the quality of life, and allows us to live in balance with nature…a future where capital (wealth and the means of creating it) is a tool of the people, not the other way around.”  As a diverse array of 175 member organizations, each is pursuing these goals in its own ways, and also coming together wherever and however possible to build on each other’s efforts.  So much essential work is happening within this network, and we are grateful for the opportunities we’ve had to collaborate with such members as Equity Trust, Co-op Power, Cooperative Fund of New England, Cutting Edge Capital, Tellus Institute, Slow Money, and Project Equity.

Our work of creating a more sustainable food system is supported by many thriving organizations.  Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA), for example, has been paving the way for countless food and farm businesses here in western Massachusetts to reach success as a result of their highly effective marketing of the “buy local” concept.  The Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG), a 12-state network of over 500 organizations, is leading the way in building a vibrant regional food system.  The Northeast Organic Farming Association and Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association are each in their fifth decade as influential developers of the organic agriculture movement.

We are also encouraged to be seeing the rise of the co-operative movement which is building a valuable alternative to the traditional corporate model.  Worker co-operatives are sprouting up here in western Massachusetts (and elsewhere), with the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives providing a forum for area worker co-ops to collaborate as well as offering assistance to start-ups.  Around the Northeast, we are seeing more and more consumer food co-ops both getting started and expanding, with support from the Neighboring Food Co-op Association – a regional network of food co-ops representing combined memberships of over 107,000 and annual revenue of $240 million.

While the primary focus of Real Pickles’ work is the Northeast U.S., we recognize the importance of maintaining a national and global perspective, as well.  We admire and support the grassroots climate activism of 350.org, and have participated in climate marches in NYC and Washington DC.  The National Co-op Business Association, a national trade group of co-ops, is doing important work developing and advancing co-operative enterprise both in the U.S. and internationally. The Cornucopia Institute is providing the public with essential reporting highlighting both the problems of industrial agriculture and beneficial practices of family-scale organic farmers.  Over the past year, thousands have been camped out on the front lines protesting plans to build the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation (we recently made an exception to our Northeast-only distribution commitment to send a donation of fermented vegetables to the protesters).

Addie Rose at 2013 Climate Rally in DC

We’re deeply fortunate to be working with so many effective partners who share our commitment to a just, democratic, and sustainable society.  At the same time, we know that our approach to creating social change, as well as the scope of our own network, represents merely a narrow slice of what is happening and what must happen if we are to truly achieve our vision.  In the months and years ahead, we commit to redoubling our efforts to create real and positive change by building on the work we’re already doing and by seeking out new connections and partnerships across our region, nationally and globally.  We hope you will join us.

 

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One Year as a Co-op

We just wrapped up our fiscal year at Real Pickles. In many ways, it was a typical year for the business. Interest in fermented foods has continued to rise, and the year was another strong one for us. As is often the case, the uncertainties of the growing season necessitated some creative problem solving (a wet spring in the Pioneer Valley resulted in much less early cabbage than we were expecting) but in the end we got all of the fresh ingredients we were hoping for and processed over 300,000 pounds of Northeast-grown vegetables during our production season, an increase of about 40% over last year!

What was different about this past year, however, was our structure as a business. May 9th marks the day that Real Pickles made the transition from a sole proprietorship to co-operative ownership. It took a lot of work to become a co-op, and now the process of running the business involves both shared effort and reward for our new group of member-owners. Some of what we encountered during our first year was expected and other things took us a little more by surprise. As an increasing number of businesses consider transitioning to the co-operative model, we want to share some of our experiences so far.

Learning to be Business Owners

The founding worker-owners on May 9th, 2013 getting ready to
sign the legal documents to convert Real Pickles to a co-operative.
(Photo credit: David J. Singer, Esq.)

As Real Pickles made the structural shift to becoming a co-op owned by its employees, those of us who hadn’t previously been owners knew we would have to make the mental shift to thinking like owners. Looking back a couple years, as the founding co-op group worked together to figure out if Real Pickles’ transition to a worker co-op made sense for the business and for each of us as individual potential owners, we spent quite a bit of time on activities that served the joint purpose of strategic planning and practicing the art of ownership. Inspired by our friends at South Mountain Company, we prepared an exercise that encouraged us to articulate what kind of growth we want for Real Pickles, and the possible outcomes of different approaches for our future. Since completing the transition, we’ve continued this important strategic planning work.

To further foster a learning culture in our business, we started holding internal classes on five core topics – Social Mission, History of Real Pickles, the Co-operative Movement, Finances and Governance. While all staff people attend, all potential worker-owners are required to complete these classes before becoming part of the co-op. This has given us all a common base of understanding of Real Pickles as a co-operative business and some of the tools we need to be effective business owners.

The need to think like owners was highlighted when, recently, we were looking at increasing certain benefits for staff – in this case, starting a Real Pickles sponsored retirement account, increasing our paid time off and implementing a family leave policy. While we as employees were, in principle, supportive of enhancing benefits for ourselves and our co-workers, as owners we also had to take responsibility for the impacts of these decisions on the business that provides us with employment. When we looked at the costs within our budget for next year, we ended up proceeding more cautiously, scaling back the new benefits for the upcoming year with the understanding that we will revisit this topic after we have another year as a co-op under our belts and can envision what long term sustainability looks like.

Another example of new owners having to broaden their perspectives came recently when it was time for Dan’s first annual review as General Manager. A small group of board members was formed to conduct the review process. This process of evaluating our General Manager — who is also the founder, hired many of us and who many of us report to directly — exemplifies how the workers have had to step up and manage multiple roles with this new co-operative. In the end, the review went extremely well. It was a powerful experience for all involved and a clear example of what makes a co-op different from other business models.

Charting Our Future

Last May, as we looked forward, we knew that if the co-op was to be successful over time we would have to make worker-ownership appealing to more staff people. We expected that other employees would see the value of being worker-owners but didn’t expect it to happen so quickly.  Even before we officially made the transition to a co-op, two more staff people expressed their interest. In the midst of working on our business strategy, investment campaign, incorporation and legal documents, we had to scramble to articulate the “path to worker-ownership” at Real Pickles, with an eye to finding the balance between making the ownership process clear and accessible to workers while maintaining a high level of training and engagement for potential new members.

We have also been careful to create clear distinctions between the responsibilities of the worker-owners, the board and staff. We wrote our bylaws with an eye to these issues but, taking a cue from fellow worker co-op Equal Exchange, we later also created a governance matrix that both lays out responsibilities from our bylaws (such as only a consensus of all worker-owners can amend Real Pickles’ mission) and clearly communicates what body is accountable for other areas of the business (for example, the General Manager creates the annual budget to be ratified by the Board of Directors). This clarity of responsibilities has served us well so far and the clear delineation of authority and oversight has helped us to work efficiently.

For Brendan Flannelly-King, Real Pickles’ facility manager and one of the five founding members, much of the work setting up the co-op felt abstract and it was often difficult to imagine what it would be like to be an owner. “In some ways,” he says, “owning the business has been easier than I had expected. It’s hard work, but since the worker-owners as a body aren’t involved in operations, we have been able to really focus on strategy.” As we look to our second year, we’re working to anticipate the systems that will help us to be even better business owners, and will help make future decisions as clear and simple as possible.

Real Pickles & Our Community

Real Pickles as a sole proprietorship has long had a strong network of support within the community and we knew we would need to engage that network in a variety of ways as we made the transition to a cooperative. One thing we did was to gather a group of community members as a Board of Advisors to help us look at strategic planning, particularly the issue of how to grow our business in a way that is thoughtful and sustainable. This topic has provided fodder for energetic meetings with lots of debate about competition, mechanization, growth and sustainability. We as worker-owners have been inspired and motivated by these discussions.

We have also found that the outreach work we did throughout the months leading up to our co-op transition has continued to benefit us. Real Pickles’ local following has grown and become even more dedicated – we sold over 7000 more jars in the Pioneer Valley in 2013 than we did in 2012! It is encouraging that worker cooperation appears to have value not only for our own employees but also for customers who can see its benefits for the wider community.

Central to our vision as a sustainable, mission-based co-operative is further engaging our community — the growers who supply us, the farm stands, food co-ops, natural food stores and other businesses that carry our products, the people who purchase them, the investors who helped finance our transition, and the co-ops that have supported us along the way — as we chart the future success of our business. Thanks to the many people who have supported us in this exciting first year of what we hope will be a long and inspiring journey. A co-op is a community effort, and we could not have done it without you!

The current Real Pickles worker-owners (from l to r): Kristin Howard,
Dan Rosenberg, Andy Van Assche, Rebecca Lay, Brendan Flannelly-King,
Annie Winkler, Addie Rose Holland. (Photo credit: Heather Wernimont)

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Real Pickles and the Path to a Co-operative Economy

We are excited to share a few words written by Erbin Crowell, Executive Director of the Neighboring Food Co-op Association (NFCA) and local expert on cooperative business.  Erbin was a huge help to the Real Pickles Co-op founding group as we forged ahead with our transition to a cooperative structure.  He earned his Master of Management: Co-op & Credit Unions from St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia and serves on the boards of the National Co-operative Business Association and the New England Farmers Union. He lives in Buckland, MA, with his partner Kristin Howard and their son Elias, and may be contacted at erbin@nfca.coop.

By Erbin Crowell, Executive Director, Neighboring Food Co-op Association

The United Nations International Year of Cooperatives was celebrated in 2012

 

It’s been about five years since I first sat down with Real Pickles’ cofounder Dan Rosenberg at his home in Montague, MA.  As he considered the future of his company, Dan was interested in knowing more about the co-operative business model and its potential for preserving Real Pickles’ unique mission over time.  For my part, I wanted to better understand the perspectives of entrepreneurs like Dan who were uncomfortable with the traditional paths of business succession.  Could co-ops offer a viable alternative for business owners who see success as defined more broadly than just the bottom line?

My partner Kristin Howard – now Real Pickles’ sales manager and a founding worker-owner – and I had recently left Equal Exchange, a worker co-op and pioneer in fairly traded products, where we had been member-owners for a combined two decades.  My experience developing new initiatives within a rapidly growing co-op had been profound on a personal level.  It had also demonstrated to me how co-ops could have a dramatic impact on the economy by working together across the food system.  I wanted to be part of making the experience available to more people, and growing the wider co-operative economy.  This path had led me to studies in co-operative management and work with organizations including the Co-operative Fund of New England, the Valley Alliance of Worker Co-ops, and finally the Neighboring Food Co-op Association.

A basic challenge for the co-operative movement is that it has been largely overlooked by universities, economic development organizations, and local governments. It is easy to go through one’s academic career without learning anything about this business model, despite the global impact of co-ops. When young entrepreneurs seek out support for starting or growing a business, the co-operative model is rarely offered as an option.  Basic legal and financial support is weak at best.

And yet, co-operatives have succeeded.  For example, more than a billion people around the world are co-op members — more than directly own stock in publicly traded corporations.  Co-ops also employ more people than multinationals.  And in the quest for food security, co-operatives have been recognized as lifeline for small farmers and consumers in the developing world.

In recent years, co-ops have been recognized for their performance during the global recession that began in 2008 and continues to cause massive unemployment, dramatic shifts in wealth and austerity.  Co-ops have proven extraordinarily resilient during this period, preserving jobs, wealth and community infrastructure. And their global contribution to human development, poverty reduction and sustainability led the United Nations to declare 2012 the International Year of Co-ops.

In addition to being driven by a distinct set of values and principles, the co-operative legal structure prioritizes social needs and goals above the accumulation of profit.  Based on the principle of one member, one vote, co-ops are very real examples of the kind of economic democracy that people are clamoring for in the wake of this global recession.

Food co-ops in our region are an illustration of the potential of this model.  For the past three years, I have served as executive director of the Neighboring Food Co-op Association (NFCA), a network of over 35 food co-ops and start-ups across New England.  These are community businesses, locally owned by more than 80,000 people.  Success is not measured by investor dividends, but by factors such as environmental impact, benefits to members, and employment. Because they are not focused on maximization of profit, co-ops have been innovators in the food system and pioneers in healthy foods, organic products and Fair Trade.

Food co-ops have also been leaders in the re-localization of economies, illustrated by the fact that the members of the NFCA purchase over $30 million in local products each year.  In communities across our region, food co-ops serve as anchors for local producers and as places to experiment with new products.

However, a central challenge for food co-ops, and for the “buy local” movement in general, is that the purchasing power we invest in the local economy does not always stay in the community.  For example, our members and customers have invested millions of their consumer dollars in socially responsible businesses, only to see them bought out by large multinational corporations.  In this sense, local economies often serve as a testing ground for the investor-driven economy. Entrepreneurs create new products and services and those businesses that demonstrate sufficient potential to generate profits for investors are absorbed into this market economy through investor buy-outs, initial public offerings (IPOs) or purchase by a larger corporation.  As a result, the capital, creativity and infrastructure created by local entrepreneurs are extracted from local communities, and the stakeholders who helped create that market value are left behind.

Another challenge for the local movement is business succession.  What happens when an entrepreneur decides to retire or simply move on to something new?  As we invest our consumer dollars in local businesses, are there ways to ensure that those businesses don’t fade away or get sold to corporate interests?  Is there a way to engage other stakeholders — workers, producers, consumers and the wider community — in the mission and long-term success of local enterprises so that they are more sustainable and accountable to the people who depend on them?

This question has been at the root of the co-operative movement since its beginnings.  In response to the concentration of wealth and control that characterized the Industrial Revolution, community activists created a democratic business model, rooted in social values, and oriented toward the meeting of human needs rather than accumulation of profit.  For the first food co-ops, the goal was food security and rooting a source of healthy, affordable food in the community.  For farmers, it was pooling resources to invest in the shared infrastructure needed to compete with larger growers and corporations.  And for workers, it was gaining more control over our work-lives so that a company couldn’t just up and leave in search of higher profits.

Certainly, these goals speak to many entrepreneurs today for whom the ideals of economic democracy, sustainability and human fulfillment are integral to their vision of success.  What has been missing is a roadmap for succession that provides an alternative to the traditional corporate buyout.  Real Pickles founders, Dan and Addie Rose, may have part of the answer.  Five years after we sat down to talk co-ops, their company is on the cutting edge of a trend toward a new way of thinking about the basic purpose and priorities of local business.  For an emerging group of entrepreneurs, conversion to a co-operative structure may be driven by the desire to root their business in the community, to safeguard their mission, or simply to share ownership, risk and reward with their co-workers.  For others, “co-operation” was always what they had in mind – they just needed a formal business structure for it.

This is not to say that there is not an important role for outside investors in this effort.  What is needed is a new way of thinking about this role.  Some have used the term “social investor,” and “slow” or “patient” capital.  Tom Webb, former manager of the Master of Management, Co-operatives and Credit Unions Program at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada, has called for something a little more specific: “co-operative capital.”  For Webb, the financial crisis of 2008 and the accompanying global recession has demonstrated the problems of an economic system built on maximization of profit.  “We need capital that is socially constructive rather than destructive and more stabilizing rather than destabilizing,” he writes.  “We need capital that is restrained, limited and controlled and directed to meeting human need rather than human greed.”

In fact, some of the most successful contemporary co-ops have relied on this kind of capital to grow their businesses.  Equal Exchange and Organic Valley, for example, offer investment opportunities for non-member individuals and organizations.  This capital is constructive in that it is driven by social and environmental impacts as opposed to maximization of return; it is restrained because investment shares are non-voting, with control remaining with the membership; and it is stabilizing in that share value is based on cash value rather than the theoretical market valuation employed by the stock market and employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), rooting wealth in the community.  Over time, many have insisted that investors would not accept these limitations on their influence and returns.  And yet, year after year these co-ops have had little trouble attracting sufficient capital to support their growth.

What is particularly exciting about Real Pickles is that they have demonstrated a model in which people can invest in the conversion of a privately held business into a co-operative enterprise.  Essentially, investors are using their financial resources to secure a business within the local co-operative economy, as opposed to the market economy.  This represents a compelling shift in our conception of what is possible.

Over the years, food co-ops across the Northeast have invested substantial purchasing power in the success of local businesses like Real Pickles.  And I am proud that the Neighboring Food Co-op Association has been able to play a small part in the transition of the company, becoming an investor in Real Pickles as part of our vision of “a more healthy, just and sustainable food system, and a vibrant community of co-operative enterprise.”

On a personal level, it has been inspiring to work with the member-owners of this new co-op in this process.  In my role as the first staff person for the Valley Alliance of Worker Co-ops, I began to see the importance of co-op led development and the potential of peer-to-peer collaboration in supporting the success of co-operative enterprises.  While my primary work is now with the NFCA, there is a clear overlap in the vision of our food co-ops and that of companies like Real Pickles.  Moving forward, my hope is that co-ops and local entrepreneurs will be able to see the potential in this kind of collaboration in growing the co-operative movement in our region.

Dan Rosenberg and Addie Rose Holland have not only chosen an inspiring path for Real Pickles.  They, along with the other founding member-owners of the Real Pickles Co-op, have laid a path for local business succession and the transformation of individual entrepreneurship into what would be more accurately described as co-opreneurship: creative economic development with the goal of strengthening economic democracy, sustainability, and community wealth.

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A Community Perspective: Investing in a Better Food System!

We are honored to feature this guest post from the leadership team of the Pioneer Valley Slow Money chapter.  The burgeoning Slow Money movement is about “investing as if food, farms and fertility mattered.”  We at Real Pickles are excited to be offering a local investment opportunity of this kind as we work to transition our business to a worker-owned co-operative.  And, we are thankful to our local Slow Money chapter for its support!

 

by Paul DiLeo, Joe Grafton, Kyra Kristof, Spirit Joseph, Jeff Rosen, Sam Stegeman, and Tom Willits

 

“As long as money accelerates around the planet, divorced from where we live, our
befuddlement will continue. As long as the way we invest is divorced from how we
live and how we consume, our befuddlement will worsen. As long as the way we invest
uproots companies, putting them in the hands of a broad, shallow pool of absentee
shareholders whose primary goal is the endless growth of their financial capital, our
befuddlement at the depletion of our social and natural capital will only deepen.”
 -Woody Tasch, Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money

The leadership team of the Pioneer Valley Slow Money Chapter has been working diligently to support Real Pickles in its efforts to raise capital through its community investment campaign.  When Dan and Addie asked us to share our reasoning behind these efforts, we responded with equal zeal.  So, here goes:

Photo credit: Paul Wagtouicz

 

Living where we do, in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, nestled within the regional community of New England, we are participants in an exciting movement.  Over the past several decades, we have seen an increase in the number of farms and farmers in the region, reversing decades of decline.  Many of us have ample opportunity to join a local CSA and to shop at one of the many new farmer’s markets that are now part of our daily economic life.  Both producers and consumers are driving positive changes in the food system, as more producers build businesses with a deep commitment to their local food system and more consumers shift their buying patterns in support of local food.

And, while we are all pleased with the positive trends, few, if any of us, feel satisfied with that pace, or the current scale of the local food economy in our region.  So, what’s slowing us down?

As Woody Tasch suggests above, there is a missing piece to this economic equation.  We are missing the investors in our local food system.  Slow Money, as a movement, is growing alongside of the local food movement, designed to help that movement obtain the type of investment capital it needs.  Many of us have been engaged in heated conversations, where we decry our inability to move a portion of IRAs or other investments out of the traditional investment world and into our local economy.  There is a lag, a logjam of intent, when it comes to finding a way to match our consumer commitment to local food with an equally straightforward investor commitment.

But, as people who have been engaged in this space have learned, it’s not easy to match our mission zeal up to investment opportunities.  For one thing, there are not many opportunities.  For another, as movement leaders, we are asking for our businesses to be mission-focused in a way that supports a local (food) economy.  We want them to treat their suppliers and employees well, use best ecological practices, and maintain a long-term commitment to local ownership and place.  Yet, such mission requirements do not typically provide investors with the kinds of returns they seek, or a quick way to get their money back.

Slow Money seeks to provide patient investment dollars that can finance businesses.  These dollars would not pressure them to sell out on their mission commitment.  The Slow Money movement rests on a thesis that there are good, viable businesses that can scale up to the size of the local economy which houses them.  The movement seeks businesses who can demonstrate the principles we all seek, who really need this new kind of patient, or “nurture” capital.

The Pioneer Valley Slow Money Chapter – operating as a working group within the PVGrows network – is pleased to be working with Real Pickles to assist them in meeting their finance challenge.  Real Pickles has demonstrated commitment and business competence in light of the mission elements we all seek.  They buy from local/regional family farmers, paying them fair prices.  Their transition to a worker co-operative continues a tradition of fair and equitable treatment for its employees.  Real Pickles is committed to organic agriculture in the field, and energy efficiency and solar power at its facility.  And long-term commitment to local ownership and place is what their co-op transition deal is all about.

The team at Slow Money is excited to support Real Pickles because they are the real deal.  Their commitment to principled business makes it hard for them to offer investors the kind of return they are accustomed to seeing in the world of Fast Money.  But, they embody the change we seek, and offer supporters of local food an opportunity to invest in a way that is consistent with their consumer commitment.  Real Pickles has worked hard to make this offer viable and available.  We are proud to help them get the word out.

For more information about Real Pickles’ co-op investment campaign, visit www.realpickles.com/invest. 
 

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A Community Perspective: Keeping It Local!

Margaret Christie is a rock star.  Especially when it comes to our local food system here in western Massachusetts.  As executive director of Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) in the late 1990s, she oversaw the launch of the hugely successful “Be a Local Hero, Buy Locally Grown” marketing campaign.  In her on-going work as CISA’s special projects director, Margaret plays an essential role as researcher, thinker, and organizer in the effort to build a better food system – locally and beyond.  Here, Margaret offers her perspective on the social benefit of Real Pickles’ decision to go co-op.  Thanks, Margaret, for your kind and insightful words!  

by Margaret Christie, Special Projects Director, CISA

Why is Real Pickles’ decision to go worker co-op good for the rest of us?  If they keep making good dill pickles, ginger carrots, and sauerkraut, do we care who owns them and how that ownership is structured?  Yes, we do—not only because of the impact this business will have, but because the folks at Real Pickles are showing us how we can be involved in building a better food system.

The change in Real Pickles’ ownership provides a number of collateral
community benefits, but most important may be the model of business success they offer.  As we work together to create a network of farm and food businesses that provide more of the food we eat every day here in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts (and the surrounding region), we often focus on business start-ups, not on what follows success.  But what happens to a business that starts with a commitment to sourcing regionally or sustainably grown ingredients as the business matures?  When the owners are ready to do something else—or just to shoulder a little bit less of the burden of keeping the business going—how can their commitment to regional sourcing be maintained?  Real Pickles’ decision to form a worker co-op models one answer to this important question.

Every month, I attend meetings of the PVGrows Loan Fund as CISA’s representative.  When local farm and food businesses apply to us for financing, we review a list of criteria that represent our mission of “enhancing the ecological and economic sustainability and vitality of the Pioneer Valley food system.”  Among our concerns is long-term commitment to the Pioneer Valley.  If we finance a new business, will they continue to source from local farmers in the long run, or will they decide that it’s less expensive to find their ingredients in the global marketplace?  Or might they move altogether, finding both cheaper ingredients and cheaper labor?  When evaluating loan applicants, we often have no way to assess the owners’ long-term commitment to our region.

Real Pickles’ new ownership structure, in contrast, provides two clear answers to this question.  First, the business will now have multiple owners, all relying on its success for their employment, and unlikely to choose to ship their jobs someplace else.  Second, they’ve codified their commitment to regional sourcing and regional sales in their bylaws, and made those bylaws very difficult to change.  Rather than getting big and getting bought out by a larger corporation with, perhaps, a stronger commitment to their shareholders’ profits than to our local economy, Real Pickles has strengthened their commitment to our region while restructuring their ownership.

Real Pickles’ action reminds me of a courageous step taken by another Franklin County business more than a decade ago.  In 1998, a group of Franklin County dairy farmers decided to form a co-op and market their own milk to local consumers, becoming Our Family Farms.  They introduced the milk by giving out lots of free samples, explaining that it came from their own farms, right down the road.  There wasn’t much fanfare then about locally grown food, but the response was clear: the milk was delicious, and local residents understood that supporting businesses in their own communities benefitted the local economy.  Many farmers and farm advocates in the region took notice.  At CISA, when we started the Be a Local Hero, Buy Locally Grown campaign the following year, Our Family Farms’ success gave us confidence that the campaign would resonate here in the Pioneer Valley.  CISA is now celebrating our 20th anniversary, and the founding of Our Family Farms was a critical milestone on the road to the Local Hero campaign and the explosion of interest in local food and farms.

I expect that Real Pickles’ decision to form a worker co-op—and the campaign for investors which will finance the shift in ownership—will play a similarly important role in the growth of our local food system.  Growth and success can lead to a renewed commitment to our region and the health of its farms, workers, and local economy.  And as residents of this region, some of us can do more than applaud and eat pickles:  we can finance this growth from within our own community.

For more information about Real Pickles’ co-op investment campaign, visit www.realpickles.com/invest.

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Why I Want to be a Worker-Owner…Again

When I first starting working with Dan and Addie at Real Pickles four years ago, I was impressed by their delicious fermented vegetables and commitment to family farms here in the Pioneer Valley.  I was also intrigued by how they thoughtfully rejected the conventional wisdom that success for a natural foods business means getting national distribution, scaling up and selling out.  What kind of organic food business would limit sales to the northeastern US when there was clear demand across the country?  Who would decline sales to big food distributors in favor of local companies and direct deliveries?

This approach has been very successful for Real Pickles over the past eleven years. And these unconventional ideas about how to run a business are not just ideological.  They are sound decisions for owners whose concern is not maximizing profit, but creating a stable business that contributes to a vibrant regional, organic, and values-based food system.

Based on these priorities, Dan and Addie have decided that the best path for them is to convert their business to a co-op.  As member-owned enterprises, co-operatives are designed to meet human needs and aspirations before maximizing profit.  Because of this, co-ops tend to focus on long-term goals beyond the quarterly balance sheet. Dating back to the 1800s, the co-operative movement offers a democratic economic alternative that roots wealth in local communities. When the United Nations declared 2012 the International Year of Co-ops, the goal was to shine a light on a business model that now includes over a billion members worldwide –  more people than directly own stock in publicly traded corporations.

For me personally, Real Pickles’ transition to a co-op is an exciting opportunity.  Before joining the business, I spent a decade as a member of Equal Exchange, a Fair Trade Organization committed to working with small farmer co-ops throughout the world.  Through this work, I was able to see how co-operatives enable people to change their lives and communities — often in the context of geographical isolation, governmental neglect and poverty — and meet their needs, together.

In Darjeeling, India, I visited a community living on an abandoned tea plantation that had formed a co-op and were slowly bringing the tea bushes back into production so that they could diversify their incomes beyond local cash crops. In Chiapas, Mexico, I saw how coffee co-ops are essential tools for the independence of Zapatista Autonomous Communities, where indigenous communities provide themselves with essential services.

Kristin having morning coffee with the Castellon family, Miraflor Co-op, Nicaragua, 2002

Most meaningful to me were the co-operative communities I met in Nicaragua.  Like many coffee-growing countries, Nicaragua is a stunningly beautiful place.  But the beauty of the countryside contrasts with the lack of opportunity faced by much of the population, a result of decades of dictatorship starting in 1937, an earthquake that devastated the capital in 1972 and a brutal civil war in the 1980s.  Coffee co-ops, however, are a bright spot in rural Nicaragua.  During my visits to these communities, I met teenagers from farming communities who give passionate tours of the local rainforest as part of eco-tourism programs created by their co-op, women who run co-op-sponsored outreach programs on domestic violence, and young co-op staff people who are trained experts in coffee quality.  Through their co-ops, thousands of coffee farmers in Nicaragua have shared ownership of highly efficient coffee processing and export facilities.  The farmers, co-op staff people, and community activists I met in Nicaragua during my time at Equal Exchange have persisted through political conflict and open warfare, and inspired me to continue to work for justice and community ownership in the food system.

To me, it is important that Equal Exchange is itself organized as a co-operative, living the values of democracy that it values in its suppliers.  As a former worker-owner, I – along with my fellow members – elected the board of directors and participated in core business decisions. It was the worker-owners who decided to expand beyond coffee into tea and chocolate, to create a policy that limited our highest salary to four times the lowest, to buy a building, and to set up our own roasting facility. These weren’t always easy decisions and we did not always agree.  But democratic ownership means that we are accountable for own work lives and the success of the business that we share.

During my time at Equal Exchange, I watched a series of socially responsible businesses in the northeast transition from small, committed companies to “brands” purchased and managed by multinational corporations: Stonyfield Farm (Danone), Fresh Samantha Juice (Odwalla and later Coca-Cola), Organic Cow of Vermont (Dean Foods) and Tom’s Toothpaste (Colgate).  While some of these businesses have been able to keep some portion of their mission intact, their bottom line is to generate profit for the parent company and enhance its reputation.  Over time, commitment to the values that drew consumers to these companies seems, inevitably, to fade.

I admire Dan and Addie’s commitment to their vision.  Real Pickles as a co-operative is a logical extension of this commitment and I am impressed by their decision to follow this path. Looking forward, my day-to-day job at Real Pickles Co-operative will look about the same — I’ll still work on new product ideas, make sales calls, and, in a pinch, forklift cases of sauerkraut and kimchi onto delivery trucks.  But becoming part of the co-op will provide a deeper sense of ownership of the business and commitment to sustaining our mission. Together with my fellow co-op members, I am looking forward to being a worker-owner… again.

We are excited to announce the latest step in our plan to go co-op: An opportunity to invest in Real Pickles!  Offered to MA & VT residents, this is an excellent way to support our transition to a co-operative structure as well as our continuing work in helping to build a vibrant, regional, organic food system.  Read more:  www.realpickles.com/invest

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We’re Going Co-op!

by Dan and Addie

We have big news to share:  Real Pickles is becoming a worker co-operative!

Along with Real Pickles staff, we have been laying the groundwork for a co-op transition for a number of months now, and earlier this summer – during the UN’s International Year of Cooperatives – we officially decided to make the switch!  Everyone here is excited about the plan to convert Real Pickles to a worker co-op, and we will be working to make it happen over the next few months.  While the two of us will no longer be the sole owners of the business, we will continue to be part of Real Pickles as worker-owners and managers.  We think a worker co-op structure will be an outstanding way to help ensure that Real Pickles will succeed far into the future – producing delicious and healthy food for people and making a lasting contribution to building a new and better food system!

Why co-op?

We have worked hard over the last decade to build up our business: creating and scaling up our recipes, developing markets for our products, and educating folks about fermented pickles.  We have figured out how to manage the challenges posed by our commitment to sourcing locally – purchasing and processing our year’s supply of vegetables all within the short span of the New England growing season.  And three years ago, when we had completely outgrown the community kitchen we were using, we made the big leap to our own organic food facility.

Now, after eleven years in business, it is quite gratifying to be able to say that Real Pickles has achieved a certain level of success as an organic food business.  We are not making big bucks, but things are financially solid.  We have a fantastic staff of twelve.  We operate out of a 100% solar-powered, energy-efficient facility.  We are supplying over 300 stores around the Northeast with delicious, nourishing food.  And, we are supporting local farms with annual purchases nearing 200,000 pounds of certified organic vegetables.  Yes!

Where does one go from here?  These days, the typical path for a business like ours involves continued rapid growth followed by selling out to a large industrial food corporation.  Entrepreneurs who have gone this route will offer a variety of rationalizations for why such a move can be socially beneficial.  As we see it, leaving it to big corporations to run the world leads to very bad social outcomes.  As far as Real Pickles goes, our deeply socially-responsible approach to doing business doesn’t fit with big corporations’ drive for monetary profit.  We are committed to keeping Real Pickles a small business working to truly change the food system, and so we clearly must choose a different direction.

We have decided, then, to try to help re-write the standard storyline for a successful organic food business.  We are interested in creating a new structure for the business which will support both its continued financial success and success in contributing to a better world.  And, while neither of us have any plans to leave Real Pickles anytime soon, we want this structure to help ensure that Real Pickles can be viable in the long run by eventually coming to be able to thrive without dependence on its founders.

As we see it, a worker co-operative is the most promising structure for Real Pickles.  As a worker co-op, Real Pickles’ social mission and guiding principles will be inscribed in its articles of organization and bylaws, and be made difficult to change.  The business will stay rooted in the community.  Its owners will continue to be local residents who are directly involved in the day-to-day operations, and they will be highly unlikely to re-locate the business out of the area.  A worker co-op structure will also give members of our staff the opportunity to share in the decision-making and profits.  We expect this opportunity will serve as an important contributor to Real Pickles’ future success as it incentivizes our excellent staff to remain at Real Pickles on a long-term basis.

How will it work?

Five of us here at Real Pickles have made the commitment to sign on as founding worker-owners of the co-operative: Brendan Flannelly-King, Annie Winkler, Kristin Howard, and us (Dan & Addie).  Our hope is that additional staff members will join us following the transition.  According to our plan, staff will become eligible for worker-ownership following a year of employment at Real Pickles.  Once approved by the existing membership, a staff member will purchase one share of common stock in the co-operative, entitling him or her to a single vote in co-op affairs and to a share of the profits through annual patronage dividends.

As a co-operative, Real Pickles will be governed by the worker-owners via a board of directors.  On a day-to-day level, our current management structure will remain in place.  The business will continue to be managed in as participatory and inclusive a manner as possible, an approach which has been greatly successful in contributing to a satisfying and productive Real Pickles workplace.

This fall, we will be working through the remaining steps necessary to making our co-op transition happen.  A key task will be to raise additional funds so that the worker-owners can purchase the business.  As plans develop we will keep you updated, so stay tuned!  It’s an exciting time here at Real Pickles.  We are hopeful that at the end of this process – and the beginning of a new chapter – Real Pickles will be in an excellent position to be producing delicious and healthy food for people, providing meaningful and satisfying work for its staff, and making positive social change in the food system for many decades to come!

We are excited to announce the latest step in our plan to go co-op: An opportunity to invest in Real Pickles!  Offered to MA & VT residents, this is an excellent way to support our transition to a co-operative structure as well as our continuing work in helping to build a vibrant, regional, organic food system.  Read more:  www.realpickles.com/invest