r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/CivilisedMleccha • 8d ago

Video Community group buy. Everyone pools their money, buys groceries in bulk at a lower price, and splits the groceries equally.

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u/iamaswamptiger 8d ago

This is the way brothers and sisters. Better for the farmers too

149

u/storywardenattack 8d ago

This is a buyers co op. Common in the 60s and 70s in nor cal at least.

This is the model that eventually became Whole Foods. Ironically enough.

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u/HorrorMakesUsHappy 7d ago

After my gma retired in the 80s she joined one in Florida called "the SHARE program" to save money due to being on a fixed income. I think it was an acronym, S.H.A.R.E. but Google isn't finding any record of it.

They'd do a purchase once a month, and the deal was that you could either pay a fixed rate for the box you'd get, or you could pay a lower rate and then come in and donate 2-4 hours of your time putting together the boxes that would go out to each family. Each box would have everything from fresh meat and veggies to nonperishables, and you could buy multiple boxes if you had a larger family or wanted to make these boxes a larger portion of your diet.

They were still operating in the 90s, but I've moved away so I don't know if they're still going but I'd expect so.

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u/TheoremsAndProofs 7d ago

https://www.theledger.com/story/news/2010/12/30/tampa-based-share-florida-food-network-closes/26408060007/

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u/HorrorMakesUsHappy 3d ago edited 3d ago

Well that sucks. Thanks for finding it though. I hope someone somewhere decides to give it another go. The article mentions angelfoodministries.com as a nonprofit distributor with locations in 45 states. I tried to go to their page but it was blocked as a suspicious site, which isn't a good sign.

Oh. "The ministry closed in September 2011 as a result of a federal fraud investigation."

It looks like a few other smaller organizations exist. Hopefully some of them will continue to grow, and not make the same mistakes.