Mobirise.comAssata Shakur
Zeromile is an old idea made new: a dual cooperative model rooted in food justice, economic sovereignty, and community collaboration. Through our traditional Member Buyers Co-op, individuals gain access to healthy, local foods at reduced costs while supporting farmers with fair wages, and the operation of a dynamic space for markets, events, and education. Our Producer Worker Co-op empowers small food makers with affordable production space, shared resources, and opportunities for collaborative revenue-sharing, retail, and mutual aid efforts.
Driven by a vision to decentralize power in food production, Zeromile fosters partnerships between farms, producers, and neighborhoods to create value-added products, expand food access, and build resilient food networks. As a replicable model, Zeromile aims to inspire other communities to build localized systems, in context of their community, that support both people and planet.
The function of the member co-op model is multi-purpose: to help reduce purchasing costs of healthy, local foods, to encourage community and economic development, and to support agrarian pathways and food education. How, you ask?
Cost reduction: The member co-op will function as a buyers club. By buying into a membership (with different buy-in options), you are buying into bulk purchasing power, which will result in higher buying power for you.
Community & Economic Development: By becoming a member, you are directly supporting the operational costs of running Zeromile. Your contribution keeps the doors open, lights on, the community events going, food pathways expanding, and more.
Co-op Member Benefits: Access to healthy, reduced-cost foods. Discounts on co-op products. Access to book kitchen time at a reduced rate as well as a reduced cost booking event space for community gatherings: screenings, workshops, forums, meetings, etc.
Producer worker co-op members are dedicated producers & workers who use facility on a part-time to full-time basis. As a cooperative producer/worker member, you will have part ownership of the co-op, a voice, and an affordable space to create your product. Of course, also, a retail space to sell your product, opportunities to co-create for revenue sharing, and the ability to contribute to projects that have real community impact.
As a producer/worker member, you will benefit from shared resources we all have a say in. What does this look like? Bulk sourcing from suppliers and farms, and reduced cost back-end services such as bookkeeping, marketing, and more.
The larger vision for Zeromile is to assist in creating a different sort of structure for community and individual support. The goal posts don’t just include breaking down the wall and removing gatekeeping from the food production industry. We are creating a space that actively supports the decentralization of power that one sees in kitchens and businesses. We are fostering an environment of active collaboration between producers and the community. We are writing a blueprint on how a kitchen and producers can function within a neighborhood in context, meeting people where they are.
How are we doing this?
Collaboration: By bringing talented producers together to plan collaborative revenue-sharing projects. Projects like producing food programs and funding. This would look like utilizing bumper crops from local farms, gardens, and donors to produce value-added products that will either be sold with a portion of the proceeds going towards mutual aid groups, alternatively or dually, be sent out cost-free to underserved communities through a food purchasing grant. Or, like holding dinner fundraisers to pay for pay-what-you-can dinner service events to help equitably redistribute prosperity without shame. There are many possibilities.
Coordination: Working with different farms, gardens, and donors, we will strive to help expand food access. By creating a strong farmer/producer network, we will work with mutual aid groups and nonprofits to assist in developing food programs to create and expand access to food for underserved populations and those in need. Asking: What does coordination and collaboration look like within the neighborhood? Can we expand a pay-what-you-can model sustainably by partnering with restaurants in the area?
Continuation: What is the line of connection between coordination and collaboration? How can we continue to meet people where they are? What could happen if other neighborhoods, in other parts of Allegheny, picked up this model to support their communities in the context of their needs and producers? This is what we mean by blueprint. As a first of its kind, our goal is to be an inspiration to others, and make ourselves and our model accessible for others through advisement.
Capital: In the future, the goal is to evaluate and leverage our net worth. We live in a capitalist system, so we need to utilize capital tools in strategic ways to create new systems that can, eventually, thrive outside of the current one. What can we support and expand on with our capital? What does that look like? Maybe it is buying land in Allegheny County to start a farm that supports both the co–op and bolsters its food access program(s), along with creating further job and training opportunities in foodways, shortening the food supply chain. Whatever it is, it will be focused on supporting economic and food sovereignty for the people!
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