Cooperative and participatory supermarkets were born in France four years ago. One of them opened in Toulon, it is the 4th in the country in terms of surface area. The idea is to buy shares and thus help the development of new modes of consumption. Explanations.
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This is Greg’s golden ball turnip, this is Richard’s celeriac, sweet potatoes, cauliflowers, all this comes from Hyères and it is the local production in sustainable peasant agriculture …
Every week, Olivia Roux, director of the company “The vegetable girl“leaves Valette-du-Var for Toulon. She comes to deliver a supermarket, Coop sur Mer. And she can very precisely indicate the origin of all the fruits and vegetables.
These products are fresh, picked up in the morning and offered in a short circuit to cooperative members. And here, we are not talking about customers!
To do your shopping in our supermarket, you have to buy social shares, that is to say that you will become the owner of an end of your supermarket, and moreover you participate in the operation of your supermarket up to three hours every 4 weeks.
490 cooperative members since mid-December
And it works pretty well! See rather! Becoming a cooperator supposes an investment of 100 euros, which gives the right to 10 shares. You have to give 100 euros to buy 10 shares and it is only 10 euros for the beneficiaries of the social minima.
La Coop sur Mer opened its doors last December.
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© Jean-François Fuster / FTV
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Today, Coop sur mer has 490 cooperative members who can offer products to put on the shelves.
We have the possibility of choosing the products that we will put on the shelves. If we need something, we put it in a filing cabinet and the employees will order it. There I asked for bear garlic tofu and today I found it so it’s great!
Very low operating costs
Here, we are not talking about customers but about cooperators.
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© Jean-François Fuster / FTV
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The supermarket therefore belongs to the customers! The cooperative members therefore do not hesitate to get their hands dirty to hold the cash register, carry out weighings, store the rays or even check orders, which reduces operating costs to a minimum. It is in fact the cost of wages that impacts prices!
Toulon is the 4th establishment of this type in the country.
The concept is not recent, it comes from across the Atlantic. In New York, a 1,800 m2 supermarket, Park Slope Food Coop has been in existence since 1973 and is managed by over 17,000 members.
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