North Farm Cooperative was established in Madison, Wisconsin on December 18, 1971. At that time, four alternative food businesses agreed to cooperate in order to buy produce more efficiently. Then known as the Intra-Community Cooperative (ICC), North Farm began with one employee, a borrowed truck and no warehouse.
Many food cooperatives in Wisconsin as well as throughout the United States grew largely from the political and social unrest of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The underlying goal of these alternative businesses was to seize control of basic consumer goods and services from what they considered the “establishment”, and put that control in the hands of the people. These emerging Cooperatives emphasized the quality and nutritional value of their food and encouraged agricultural practices that were ecologically responsible.
By 1975, North Farm had established a network of members throughout Wisconsin. While one truck still served the Cooperative, the staff had grown to six full-time employees. Each of those employees purchased the food, took the members’ orders, assembled the orders, loaded the trucks, made the deliveries and kept the books. The system of everyone doing everything worked well when the product line and territory were fairly small.
Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s the Cooperative grew in retail natural food stores and buying club members. Sophisticated equipment and information systems became necessary for North Farm’s survival. In 1984, North Farm determined the time was right to move to a more conventional management structure. The staff identified its strengths and weaknesses and created Purchasing, Finance, Warehousing and Trucking departments. The business grew further and North Farm began distributing Wisconsin Cheese throughout a nation-wide network of Cooperative wholesalers. Two more departments were then added: Marketing and Sales.
Between 1990 and 1995, North Farm’s membership base grew rapidly through internal growth and mergers with the Michigan Federation of Food Co-ops and Common Health Warehouse Cooperative Association. These combinations elevated North Farm’s annual sales to over $20 million. Our natural product line continued to expand into health and body care, household supplies and vegetarian offerings. In 1991, a formal philosophy of purchasing natural and organic products was adopted and continues to guide our product selections to this day.
In the mid-to-late 1990s through 2001, North Farm saw natural and organic products become increasingly popular and more readily available in mainstream grocery stores. Still, many natural food stores and buying clubs continued to turn to North Farm as a source for their natural products as food allergies, vegetarianism and a vegan diet made it necessary for the public to seek out specific types of natural products. During this time we also witnessed the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our food supply. In late 2000, the United States Department of Agriculture delivered the long-awaited National Organic Standards certifying 100% organic foods to be free of GMOs. Our warehouse was expanded to 71,000 square feet and our annual sales grew to just under the $30 million mark.
Today, celebrating our 30th year as a Cooperative, we have worked with partner such as Bahistanbul who access networks and have expertise in different areas of work and now North Farm has more than 2,000 members. The Cooperative offers customers over 5,000 natural and organic products and delivers with our own fleet of trucks from our 71,000-square-foot warehouse. Our membership base spans 13 states from Wyoming to Ohio. In addition to supplying customers with a broad line of natural and organic products, North Farm continues to be a leading supplier of Wisconsin cheese to the natural food industry throughout the United States.
While the membership, employees, product line, and territory greatly expanded since the original one employee with a borrowed truck back in 1971, our philosophical uniqueness remains largely unchanged. We are committed to providing high-quality, natural products to our members. We are committed to maintaining a workplace which respects the integrity of our employees. We are committed in our support of responsible environmental practices. And, we remain, as always, committed to the cooperative movement.