Berkeley Student Food Collective Storefront

Project Leads: Alli Reed, Christina Oatfield, Yoni Landau, Adam Merberg, Kaela Colwell, Alex Stone, Bree O’Keane

Sponsors: ASUC STeam & Berkeley Student Food Collective

TGIF Grant:
$91,000

Project Theme: Food Justice & Sustainability

Project Location

2009 Application Submission

Project Description: The Berkeley Student Food Collective opened a student-run natural and sustainable food cafe and market based on the cooperative model. A cooperative is a democratic, equally owned enterprise based on principles of open membership, democratic member control, autonomy and independence, education, co-operation among co-operatives, and concern for community.

Goals: Provide fresh, healthy, environmentally sustainable, and ethically produced food at an affordable price to Berkeley students. Open a cooperatively owned storefront on or near the UC Berkeley campus. Promote community building, social justice and environmental stewardship and offer our customers 20-40% savings on healthy, sustainable, delicious food through the cooperative model. Develop educational and volunteer programs, launch a large-scale community capital fundraising program, and forge new partnerships with other cooperatives, farms, food-based organizations, student groups, and local businesses. Source foods from small, local farms and ethical, sustainable, local companies. Every item sold at the co-op will go through a process of documentation and analysis of product supply, production and distribution chain and how it compares to similar products. (documentation will include an analysis of each product’s carbon footprint, distance of production, use of pesticides, worker treatment etc.) Strive to be a zero waste facility by reusing packaging materials, as well as serving and stocking items with recyclable and/or compostable packaging. Use the Real Food Calculator (a tool developed to determine whether or not an item of food counts as “real food,” see Real Food Criteria below) to guide all its purchasing practices, providing 100% real food to the student community. The BSFC’s outreach coordinator will facilitate a DeCal course every semester pertaining to sustainable food to better promote BSFC values.

Final Poster

Final Report