The Story of the Iowa Food Cooperative
- When did the IFC start? Legal incorporation (when we became an entity) was done in July 2008. That’s when the Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws were submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office to become a co-op.
- We became an entity after a 2 year Leopold Center planning grant, as well as various previous attempts to find markets (like helping launch a distribution business in Ames call “Eat Iowa” and trying to work with Loffredos).
- How many members at the start? There were 21 founding members. We started recruiting members in Sept. 2008 (needed the software installed first). By the time we launched with a Nov. 20th distribution, we had 30 producer members and 74 consumer members, or 104 total. We had 44 members order $3,271 in product from 18 different producers our first cycle.
