Invest in Local Food - Fifth Season Cooperative

Question: What happens when you invite the food service directors of Gundersen Lutheran, Viroqua Area School District and UW- La Crosse to sit at the same table with the general managers of the Westby Creamery Co-op, Premier Meats and the Viroqua Food Co-op? And what happens when you also invite a local bio-dynamic and organic farmer and the Vernon Economic Development Director to the table?

Answer: Dynamic change, creative ideas, new understandings, an emerging new regional food distribution system, and a whole bunch of note taking!

The Fifth Season Co-op Board is currently in its initial business-planning stages, working to connect the dots between generating a fair price for produce, meat and dairy products and the tight budgets of our area’s hospitals, schools and college food service departments. Impossible some might say, but since all of the people involved are at the table, there is confidence that we will figure out a way to make it work. This co-op is one of a handful of multi-stakeholder cooperatives in the United States.

Fifth Season Co-op is now incorporated and ready to start accepting investments from the community to raise capital. For a minimum investment of $500 you can put your local dollars to work helping our local farmers and food businesses develop a new market and build the infrastructure needed to make it economically viable for the future. The co-op will pay an annual dividend of 5%.

Stock redemption is at the discretion of the Board of Directors. We really are asking for a five year commitment so we can use the equity we have to leverage other resources to help get the business off the ground and generating revenue. We are confident that over the next two years we can develop the distribution, food safety and value added processing infrastructure needed to meet the standards and requirements of our public and private institutions.

The 2011 growing season will be a pilot year for the co-op as we begin selling products and start to settle in as a tenant in the WI Food Enterprise Center. We have a learning curve to go through as we find the price points that give our farmers fair value for their hard and life-sustaining work and also pay the people in the middle to get the food to these institutions.

Our institutions also have work to do and that is why they are at the table. They have to learn to cook a little differently, plan menus more creatively and use their food budgets more wisely. Some even have to change how they negotiate their contracts with their big food service providers and some have to reeducate their own bosses and fellow co-workers about food--where it comes from and why it matters how it was raised. Some have to educate and persuade their customers to pay a little more for a much better meal.

We need your support to help make these big shifts happen. Our farmers need support to scale up their operations to meet the demands of these institutions and keep our foodshed bountiful. Our processors need support as they learn to meet new customers’ needs. Our distributors need our support as they seek alternative methods and efficient systems to begin to move beyond the shadow of fossil fuels. Our institutions need your support by saying, “Yes, do things differently and we will pay a little more for better food.”

A lot of this support will come in the form of education, training and resource building, all of which an investment in the Fifth Season Co-op helps provide. The Fifth Season Co-op is another great opportunity to invest locally. To learn more about this exciting business, or to invest, please contact Nicole Penick, at 608-637-3615 or vsnnicole (at) gmail (dot) com.