East New York Food Co-op:The growing pains of starting a community owned food store in an urban food desert

The purpose of the East New York Food Co-op is to provide the choice to eat well, but learn from and recognize the struggle with the food habits the community's existing options have encouraged among residents. Through “Building Food Justice in East New York” non-profit organizations collaborate to start a business that requires public ownership to become sustainable and develop a nutritionally healthier neighborhood. The East New York Food Co-op is the first organized in NYC since the 1970s, and the first to be federally funded. Lessons learned and milestones achieved since opening in November 2006 exemplify how the food environment influences our diet and subsequently, our health. By describing the business plan and evaluating projections, we will demonstrate how non-profit partnerships can address restricted food environments. The Co-op's opening experience confirmed that effective education, and sound business management are priority activities that will convert occasional customers and passer-bys into members. Sustainability will require addressing local tastes by responding to customer requests for products such as callalloo, mango, and soy chunks. Finally we will demonstrate the feasibility studies, focus groups, and surveys positively indicate community residents are ready for more accessible, higher quality, affordable food. It is therefore appropriate that this Co-op, whose food base is organic/all natural foods, should become a neighbor to a “fried chicken joint,” which dominates the foodscape among other fast-food establishments. This project aims to change the foodscape of ENY and lessons learned will be shared for the enrichment of other food environments.