HOW TO USE THE FOOD CO-OPS TOOLKIT
This toolkit aims to provide an overview of the important things you need to think about when setting up and running a food co-op.
It has been published on-line as this is the easiest way to download different documents and get the most up to date information. A printed version is also available - to order a copy e-mail foodcoops@sustainweb.org
The content of this toolkit is divided up into explanatory text and ‘tools’. The ‘tools’ are useful documents such as sample questionnaires, checklists, and other templates that your food co-op can download and use or adapt to your own needs.
These are listed in a box on the right hand column on the relevant pages. Usually you need to go to the sub-pages within each section, for example the information on Volunteers is within the section on People.
Certain sections will be more relevant to some types of food co-ops than others, for example a lot of the information relates to the sale of fresh fruit and vegetables, however you will not need to know all of this if you are planning to run a wholefood co-op. We have therefore tried to divide the information up into different sections so you only need to click on the pages that are most relevant to you.
There are lots of other websites and guidelines that focus on some of the areas covered in this toolkit, such as volunteer management, marketing and finance. So rather than repeating this information we have tried to summarise the areas we feel are most relevant to food co-ops and wherever possible put in links to other sources of information, and other organisations and publications.
