On the 13th of May Helen from Kindling and Alan from Manchester Veg People went to Flaxdrayton Farm in Somerset, to visit Christina Ballinger to talk producer co-ops. Christina and her husband Peter were involved in the founding of Somerset Organic Link (SOL), and SOL Producers, which was originally a producers co-operative (of which Peter was one of the producers).
In the last few years SOL producer members decided to wind up the co-op and sell SOL as a business. From previous conversations with Christina we felt that we had a lot to learn from her experience of the co-operative, as well as from her in-depth experience of organic production and distribution which is a very specialised market. Christina also has the necessary experience in trading with the catering sector which is the main market for this group.
We spent a really useful day chatting to Christina about our plans for and questions, and how the lessons she had learnt might influence the decisions we take at this early stage of forming the co-op.
Christina also had a really refreshing view of our model and the positive aspects of it:
The fact that we don't do daily deliveries isn't a negative thing – people only need daily deliveries because they are receiving 3 day old veg – if you receive it freshly picked you need it delivering less often.
The exciting thing was that Christina was really positive about the proposed Manchester Veg People model. Every so often we would be discussing something that had been an obstacle for SOL (e.g. buyers not paying on time) and then Christina would say “but that won't happen with your model because all of you will be members who will be holding each other accountable and just putting everything on the table to discuss and sort out there and then!” So not only did we learn loads but we came away feeling like we're heading in the right direction (and that other people are really excited about the idea of seeing this model in action).
Steve Garret, who attended the trip on behalf of the Plunkett Founation, said of Manchester Veg People “to my mind this is quite a revolution in terms of how institutional and commercial food buyers usually operate, but is a necessary step towards a truly sustainable local food economy which I hope will inspire procurement staff in other locations to think in this more flexible way.”
All will be written up and made available with the write up of the process of development of Manchester Veg People (which will be ready at the end of September).
The trip was funded by the Plunkett Foundation as part of the Making Local Food Work enterprise strand. Kindling and Manchester Veg People are very grateful for this support and hugely grateful to Christina for her time and support.