At the beginning of my research I set out to conduct an in-depth comparative study of two food co-ops which shared the analytical frame of this research but varied on other parameters, such as size of membership, geographical location and model of operation. To identify and reach out to sustainable food co-ops in the UK, I first turned to the organisation ÔSustainÕ, which is an umbrella organisation representing around 100 public interest organisations, and expresses its mission thus (Sustain 2010):
Sustain Ñ The alliance for better food and farming advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, enrich society and culture and promote equity.
SustainÕs staff organised and co-ordinated funding and skills support for many local food co-ops and buying groups in the UK. They also ran the foodcoops.org website, which was my first point of call in searching for and locating food co-ops. I was looking for an opportunity to work within perhaps two sustainable food co-ops as a participant observer and was hoping that SustainÕs knowledge of the food co-ops would point me to the cases most appropriate for my research and also help gain access to them.
However, when I contacted Sustain I was informed that they were at that time already conducting an evaluation exercise among food co-ops within their network as part of
the lottery-funded Making Local Food Work programme. They alerted me to the fact that since many of the food co-ops were short of staff and had agreed to participate in SustainÕs own research, there might be some research fatigue and reluctance to participate in another study. That notwithstanding, SustainÕs food co-ops co-ordinator confirmed to me the value of the research questions I wished to explore and generously agreed to send an invitation letter on my behalf to selected food co-ops. Her letter encouraged food co-ops to participate in my study with the aim of benefiting from: the learning outcomes of the research; receiving a £150 contribution from Sustain towards the participating co-opsÕ marketing initiatives; and, utilising me as a co-op volunteer during the period of my research. Unfortunately, the co-ops co-ordinator did not get a positive response from any of the co-ops contacted.
In the meantime, I became aware of a food co-op initiative in central London that had been launched the previous year and had been gaining attention in sections of the mass media as an environmentally and socially sustainable alternative supermarket. A documentary series tracing the founding of the co-op was being aired on Channel4 (The PeopleÕs Supermarket 2011: 6 February). I saw the first of four episodes covering the co- opÕs inception, launch and early days of membership recruitment. The documentary presented The PeopleÕs Supermarket (TPS) as a project through which the documentary presenter, co-founder and celebrity chef, Arthur Potts Dawson, wished to set an example of a retail model that connected urban consumers to local rural producers, reduced wastage in the food chain and promoted environmental sustainability in every aspect of its practice. From the first episode, it appeared that the co-op was still in its formative phase, with increasing public interest in its model and sustainability objectives. Hence, it appeared to be an opportune moment to observe and analyse TPSÕ development. I spoke to the manager of the co-op by telephone and expressed interest in joining the co- op. I told her that I was sympathetic towards the co-opÕs mission and also, as part of my doctoral research, wanted to study how the co-op went about achieving its goals. The manager sounded very welcoming in her response and encouraged me to contribute to the co-op in whichever way I could. The co-op had opened its shop in June 2010 and I joined it in February 2011 as its 543rd member.
Around the same time, through Internet research I came across Stroudco, a smaller food co-op initiative than TPS. Like TPS, Stroudco aimed to achieve environmental
sustainability objectives, such as, reducing food miles, reducing waste, and encouraging sustainable farming practices among its producer members. Stroudco and TPS were also both founded less than two years before I discovered them and thus presented themselves as interesting cases for comparison. However, unlike TPS, Stroudco had a working model where the democratic membership of the co-op was equally divided between its consumer and producer members, both of which were local to the geographical community in which the co-operative was based. Also unlike TPS, Stroudco was situated in a much smaller town with relatively less social diversity. I reached out to one of the founding members to enquire about the food co-op and the possibility of including it in my research. During the course of this conversation, it became evident that Stroudco had received the invitation from Sustain to join my research project and the management was favourable to it in principle, but had concerns about how much of their time my research would demand and whether my research would simply duplicate efforts by some other university-based researchers with whom the food co-op was already collaborating. I was invited to take part in one of the upcoming management meetings in Stroud to discuss how I would operationalise my research and contribute as a volunteer. After attending this meeting and upon further reflection it became apparent that it would be difficult to participate in Stroudco to the same extent as I was planning to do at TPS.
In practical terms, Stroudco was quite far from where I lived and that would have limited my involvement with the co-op on a day-to-day basis, both due to travel costs and time constraints. Since I was both working and studying, it was not possible for me to take time to immerse myself in the Stroudco community to the extent that I could do at TPS. Additionally, instead of a seven-days-a-week operation like TPS, Stroudco only ran a collection point at a local school for about two hours every Saturday. Membership meetings to discuss management issues were also not regular at that time; so there was less flexibility in meeting up with members and observing first-hand the management process at Stroudco. After the first meeting I expressed my interest in contributing to any member-oriented research that would help StroudcoÕs management in establishing their initiative. I also requested to interview key management committee members, should I need to in the course of my research. The management committee members present at the meeting consented to interviews. In the second stage of my research where I include a thematically-focused comparative research on four other co-ops, I was
able to draw information from not only an interview with a key organising member of Stroudco, but also from a short telephone-based survey of StroudcoÕs members that I conducted at the co-opÕs request.
However, for the in-depth exploration of how a sustainable food co-op goes about encouraging pro-environmental food choices, I chose to focus my research on the specific case of TPS. In case study research, selecting a critical case can increase the generalisability of findings. A critical case offers generalisation of the sort, Ôif it is valid for this case, it is valid for all casesÕ (Eckstein 2000: 149). I saw TPS as a critical case in one sense. The literature review on community-based projects and co-ops had suggested that these kinds of initiatives have potential to influence pro-environmental behaviours by providing a supporting infrastructure, generating social capital and creating opportunities for social learning. After watching the first episode of the television documentary, I got the impression that TPS had access to a range of community- and business-building resources that few other grassroots co-operatives may have. The project received marketing and financial support from a television production company. One of its founders was a celebrity chef acclaimed in the UK for opening restaurants that promoted environmental sustainability; of the other two co-founders, one was a retail expert with several years of commercial experience and the other an urban space regeneration specialist. Together, the co-founders seemed to be well connected to a host of experienced professionals who were advising them on their project, offering services pro-bono and introducing them to funders. My reasoning for selecting TPS as a critical case was that, if I paid attention to learning about the challenges that TPS might face in encouraging sustainable food practices, despite being seemingly well-resourced, whatever I learned from this case would also most likely apply to a number of other community-based sustainable food co-ops. Also, I suspected that if such an initiative could work in a socially mixed part of a city like London (IPPR and London Borough of Camden 2006), it might work equally well in places with greater community cohesion.
I conclude the in-depth case study with an identification of key challenges faced by TPS in maximising its potential to engage more members, offer affordable sustainable food, and forge a community of interest around sustainable food consumption. These challenges are then discussed further in comparison with other cases of community- based food co-ops in the UK. The expansion of analysis to include more cases is done
with a view to understanding the similarities and differences between cases with respect to the identified challenges. This is to increase the possibility of advancing a more general understanding about the conditions under which sustainable food co-ops can effectively promote environmentally responsible food choices. Linking findings from a single case study to evidence from multiple cases enables one to assess the transferability of insights across the entire class of cases (Ragin and Becker 1992).
Yin (2009) suggests that multiple-case designs follow a Ôreplication logicÕ that is similar to the logic used in multiple experiments. After a single experiment has produced significant findings, more experiments are conducted to test and verify replication of those findings. Selection of additional cases could either be done with an aim to find similar results within a set of contextual parameters similar to that of the original case, or different results based on the change in selected parameters. In terms of selection of cases for a comparative study, Ômaximum variationÕ could offer a diversity of perspectives, and also, as Stake (1995: 4) puts it, Ômaximise what we can learnÕ. Moreover, generalisability of findings across the class is more likely if patterns emerge from a set of cases chosen for maximum variation within the class (Stake 1995; Flyvbjerg 2006).
To increase the number of cases considered, I collected primary evidence from four other co-ops for a thematic comparative analysis. The themes explored in this second stage address the research questions and also emerge from the experience of the first in- depth case study. Apart from the consideration of getting access to key informants, the selection of these co-ops was based on how much they varied from TPS in respect of location, size, organisational structure and emphasis on specific aspects of sustainable food consumption. The four cases selected were:
¥ True Food Co-operative, Reading, Berkshire ¥ The University of Brighton Food Co-op
¥ Transition Pimlico Food Co-op, Pimlico, London ¥ Stroudco, Stroud, Gloucestershire
Before selecting these cases, I examined short descriptions of various food co-ops in SustainÕs directory. These four co-ops appeared broadly representative of the category variations I could identify, namely: shops, informal buying groups, box-schemes, pop-up
markets/stalls. Again, I did not see these cases as statistical representations of clearly defined categories, but saw enough variations between them across identified parameters to expect greater coverage of the whole class of food co-ops than the in- depth case study selection alone could provide. Figure 3.1 provides an overview of the co-opsÕ features which illustrates these variations. A short profile of these co-ops is also included in Chapter 5 where a cross-case analysis is presented. Two of the food co- operatives covered in this research, namely Stroudco and The True Food Co-operative, are formally registered as co-operative businesses, similar to TPS. I found both of these co-ops independently through online research and contacted their organisers. The other two co-ops, The University of Brighton Food Co-op and the Transition Pimlico Food Co- op, function as collective food buying groups with a less formal organisational structure. These co-ops were referred to me by acquaintances who already knew of them.
All of these co-ops share at least two key features. They are community-based and are organised and run by members who are considered equal owners of the co-operative. Most importantly, providing more sustainable food options in their local communities is at least one of their primary objectives. Nevertheless, each co-operative is run somewhat differently and operates in an environment that varies in terms of the constraints and opportunities it presents to achieve environmental objectives.
Figure 3.1 Characteristics of selected community-based food co-ops