Souhegan Valley Food Cooperative

Hi everyone and thank you for browsing to our original Souhegan Valley Food Coop Website.

In 2016, we revamped our site with a new coop URL here:

Souhegan Valley Food Coop

2017 is a growth year as we are past the midway point in identifying a location and building a cooperative grocery store focused on healthy food and local sourcing.

Please browse to the new site and reach out to us to help make our goal of 200 members by September 1, 2017 and 800 members by December 31, 2017.

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The Souhegan Valley Food Co-op will be collectively started, community owned, and will offer healthy, natural, organic and locally sourced foods and products.

Future Farmer

Why a Food Coop?

Better Taste & Nutrition – local means fresher! Better for you and your family.
Local Economy – dollars spent at the food co-op pay local people to grow your food, not some distant agribusiness. It pays local people who work at the co-op and money spent locally stays local to support our area.
Local Control – members have a say in how the co-op is run.
Smaller carbon footprint than industrialized farming as transportation costs are minimized.
Reduce Sprawl – Land that provides a livelihood for farmers does not necessitate the sale of fertile farm land to developers.
Build Community – A strengthened community where we all know who produces our food and local goods.

By buying from small-scale local farmers, you help to support responsible farming practices, local jobs, green space in our community and food crop diversity. Family farms typically use fewer pesticides and practice more responsible land management when compared to their big-business counterparts.

Future Farmer

Animals are almost always treated humanely. Keeping these small farmers in business allows us to “eat our view” for generations to come. Did you know that the average supermarket apple travels 1,555 miles from the farm to the table?

Along with all the other foods we buy from distant states and countries, this
adds up to 77 billion gallons of oil being used for food transportation in the U.S. each year. Buying local will help to reduce this amount!

The Souhegan Valley Food Co-op will serve the community. Our goal is to have a store that sells fresh, local products year round to everyone.

Membership options allow those interested to invest equity in the store, vote on big decisions, and elect (one household = one vote) a board of directors to represent their interests. Members enjoy many other benefits including patronage dividends and discounts both at the co-op and also at participating local businesses.

Future Farmer

Our values-driven Souhegan Valley Food Co-op is committed to our community, the environment and the International Cooperative Principles.

Buying foods produced locally keeps more money in our local economy! Without profits going to agribusiness and big-box CEOs, more of the money you spend on your food stays in the area and is reinvested into our community.

Small-scale farmers generally choose fruit and vegetable varieties for taste and nutrition (not shelf life and consistency). This means that local food from small-scale farms is more delicious and better for you. Nutrient values of fruits and vegetables begin to decline once harvested. So the sooner you get it on the table, the more nutrients your food has. What could be better than a wide
variety of delicious, nutritious food?