Eating is one of those “must do” type of activities. Eating healthy and responsibly can be difficult especially on this side of town, since unlike Carytown we don’t warrant four major grocery stores in three block radius.

The Richmond Food Co-op plans to change that by offering a grocery store of our own at 1200 Westover Hills Boulevard. Today they announced that they’ll be setting up along Westover Hills Boulevard next to the Family Dollar Store.

What is the Richmond Food Co-op? In their own words:

The Richmond Food Co-op focuses on people before profit and is driven not to maximize profits, but rather to increase Richmond’s access to quality sustainable food. By definition, cooperative enterprises are member-owned, member-serving and member-driven organizations that use a democratic model to promote sustainable development. The Richmond Food Co-op is owned exclusively by its members, and each member holds an equal share of the business. All member/owners can participate in the democratic governance of their store. Board members rotate and are selected through a general election open to all member/owners. When the Co-op begins to make a profit, member/owners decide democratically to return profits back to themselves and/or reinvest back into the Co-op for continued mission development.

As you can see from the timeline below it was quite a journey to get to this point and there is still a little ways to go. If you’d like to help them along, the best way to do so is by becoming a member.