In short: Families are making significant savings on their grocery bills by forming small shopping co-ops.
Cooperative business structures account for less than 1 per cent of the supermarket sector in Australia.
What’s next? The peak body for co-ops is calling for more government support for the business model.
Yeah, fair enough. I don’t have any first-hand experience, but advice I’ve heard is that if you can get just one other committed person on board, you’re halfway there.
If you’ve got a local Food Not Bombs group, that’s a good place to find people that are into cooperation. There’s other community groups around that might have people who are interested or that are willing to provide infrastructure of some kind - men’s sheds come to mind. Otherwise, it’s worth a try posting on local Facebook groups.
There’s probably a guide or blog written around getting something like this set up. I should have a dig around.