Beneath the red glow of a Linden Street Farmers Market stand, Bushwick Food Coop Coordinator Shira Shaham (center) leads her fellow members during a recent buying club pick-up event. — Photo by Diego Cupolo

Since its birth in March 2009, The Bushwick Food Cooperative has been working to make farm fresh, organic food more accessible in a neighborhood better known for greasy fried food.

They recruited hundreds of members, started a local CSA program and held multiple social/delicious events, but one problem remained: the Coop did not have a home base to facilitate their many ambitious projects. Members were forced to pick up their food in different places, causing confusion at times, and leaving Coop organizers dreaming of a stable location. 

Luckily, just in time for the harvest season, Bushwick Impact, a family services organization on Central Avenue, has agreed to host the Coop’s distribution events for the rest of the year. The news comes at an especially crucial moment for the Coop, as they recently started a weekly Buying Club, an arrangement in which people pool together money to order bulk quantities of food from local farms and then split it up – all in the name of lowering prices. 

Anyone can join by paying a one-time-only membership fee of $50. After that, members go online to check which food is available for the week, place an order, and then pick it up at Bushwick Impact. In return, the Coop asks members to put in 4 hours of volunteer work a month. 

"If you want to buy this kind of food in New York you’re either going to spend an arm and a leg at Whole Foods or pay high prices in city farmers markets," said Shira Shaham, work-shift coordinator for the Coop. "By ordering food straight from farms we are able to get wholesale prices so people can eat healthy, local, and organic and still be able to afford it." 

The Buying Club offers almost all the basic food items available in grocery stores and many vegan, raw, and gluten-free products. The only thing they don’t offer is seafood. 

"We’re working on it," said Mara Belzer, Buying Club coordinator. "We’ve been expanding our list every week." 

While sipping a mason jar of celery-cilantro-ginger juice, Belzer explained the not-so-far origins of all the Buying Club’s offerings: vegetables and meats come from the Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative, a group of small farms in Pennsylvania; dairy products come from Spring Water Farm, an Amish establishment; and beans and grains are supplied by Cayuga Pure Organics. 

But this isn’t about peddling stereotypical hippie staples like kale, kombucha, and kvass — members can order all kinds of grass-fed, hormone-free meats including steak, lamb chops, and even whole suckling pigs that go for as low as $86.25.

Speaking of money, many of the Buying Club’s prices are comparable or lower than that of similar products at Whole Foods in Union Square. In fact, a pound of quinoa costs about half as much through the Buying Club ($2.65) than it does at Whole Foods ($4.49). Belzer said the Coop will soon accept EBT. 

Shaham said the reason their prices are lower is because the Food Coop only charges a 20 percent mark up on food items whereas grocery stores usually charge around 100 percent. All profits made through the Buying Club will go towards a grocery store stocked with goods straight from local farms, owned and operated by the Food Coop right here in Bushwick.  

For the time being, the Coop will be distributing Buying Club food from the Bushwick Impact garden at 69 Central Ave.  

Bushwick Impact Director Loren Miller said Coop members recently planted vegetable gardens with her clients and she looks forward to working with the organization. She also said Coop members will start holding nutrition classes at Bushwick Impact where they’ll take families to a farmers market, buy fresh vegetables, and then cook them at home, all while teaching healthy eating habits. 

"With so much obesity, diabetes and asthma in Bushwick, it’s becoming more and more important for families to learn how to eat healthy foods and we want to help them get informed," Miller said. "For this, the Food Coop is going to be a very valuable partner. They have so many resources and their volunteers are really enthusiastic about improving life here in Bushwick."