Member Information Statement

  1. Members of the Iowa Food Cooperative are interested in Iowa-grown food and other Iowa-made products. Members value farmer-consumer relationships, environmental stewardship, and community vitality.
  2. The Iowa Food Cooperative strives to be a business that is financially viable, environmentally sustainable, and socially just.
  3. Membership in the Iowa Food Cooperative is $50 and is fully refundable. Beginning in year 2, an annual fee of $10 is required, with these funds used for education and outreach activities. Handling fees are 10% for both farmers and consumers. Thus, if a farmer sells $100 worth of product, a fee of $10 will be subtracted from their check, and if a consumer buys $100 worth of product, a fee of $10 will be added to their invoice.
  4. Every member of the cooperative is eligible to buy products from or sell products to other members.
  5. The cooperatives’ distribution sites are in retail spaces at Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines and Village of Ponderosa in West Des Moines. Plans are to expand to additional sites over time and the business grows.
  6. Producers must disclose the practices they use to raise livestock or grow crops so that consumer members are able to choose from producers with a particular type of product. Examples of practices that need to be disclosed are the use of petroleum based fertilizers, herbicides or insecticides on crops or the use of hormones or antibiotics in animals. Producers are expected to fully disclose the way in which their crops were raised and cared for.
  7. Producers may only sell products they themselves have grown, processed or crafted. A producer may not buy wholesale from someone else and then retail the product through the Iowa Food Cooperative. An exception o this is when a member purchases ingredients for further value-added processing. In this case, ingredients for a value added product that are available from Iowa farmers must be purchased from Iowa farmers. Also, the producer must add value to the product; simply repackaging ingredients is not adding value, nor is buying livestock from someone and having those animals processed for sale.
  8. Every producer member is responsible to know and be in compliance with all appropriate federal, state and local inspections, licenses, statutes and ordinances.
  9. Each order is a legally enforceable contract to pick up and pay for the products ordered unless the products are damaged or broken. Everything in a consumers online shopping basket when the order window closes becomes an order for those products. Note that consumers can remove products they have placed in their shopping cart if they do so before the ordering window closes. The current close of the ordering window is the 2nd Thursday of the month at midnight.
  10. When consumer members pick up orders, they need to make sure they get all the items ordered. Also, all orders must be paid for before members leave the pickup site. Prompt payment is a condition of membership.