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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Blooming Prairie Coop Warehouse Under Pressure To Sell |
Current rating: 3 |
by Michelle Miller
(No verified email address) |
08 Sep 2002
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Blooming Prairie is a wholesale supplier to the local food co-ops and other retail organic food stores. This article may be helpful in defining the issues at stake in selling out Blooming Prairie (owned by its members co-ops), which co-ops will be asked to vote on in the near future. ML |
Blooming Prairie co-op warehouse is under pressure to sell. This would directly affect Common Ground and Fruited Plain Co-ops, along with Strawberry Fields, Natural Gourmet, and Schnuck's in Champaign County, IL, all of which BP supplies with organic foods and produce.
It puts even organic food in the hands of corporations, and those with an interest in running collectively run cooperatives into the ground.
phone: 608.255.5885 mthree (at) charter.net
Blooming Prairie - the Midwest's last remaining cooperative natural foods warehouse - is under pressure to sell to United Natural Foods, the primary distributor for Whole Foods stores. BP's member retail food coops, buying clubs and traditional groceries (including Whole Foods) are in the process of voting whether or not to sell to UNF. Natural foods coops around the Midwest will be voting on an issue that is important for the entire natural foods coop movement, an issue that may change the nature of the natural foods movement entirely. Blooming Prairie warehouse is putting to member vote whether or not they should sell out to United Natural Foods.
Terms of the proposal were not released. A Letter of Intent has been signed by the two companies. The agreement is contingent on the signing of a definitive Purchase Agreement and approval by the Boards of Directors of both companies and by the cooperative's membership.
Peter Roang, Chair of Blooming Prairie's Board of Directors, notes that the co-op is enjoying strong growth and financial performance. The proposal represents an opportunity for the co-op, one of the top regional distributors in the natural products industry, to join with a leading national company.
Blooming Prairie Cooperative Warehouse, founded in 1974, is owned by over 2200 retail stores, co-ops and buying clubs in the upper Midwest, and distributes natural and organic products to a 13-state region. Annual sales topped $130 million this year, and the Company employs over 280 people at locations in Iowa City, Iowa, and Mounds View, Minnesota. Blooming Prairie serves a wide variety of retail formats including conventional supermarket chains, natural product superstores, independent retail operators, cooperatives and buying clubs.
Who is United Natural Foods, Inc.?
United Natural Foods, Inc. is a publicly-held company with over 25 years of experience in natural products distribution. They have over $1 billion in annual sales from 12 locations throughout the U.S., and serve all types of customers. They are also the owner of Albert's Organics, an organic produce distribution company. UNFI began in 1976 and has grown through the merger or acquisition of 23 natural products companies. They are partially owned by their employees through an ESOP, and are traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange as UNFI. United Natural Foods Inc. is a publicly-held company with distribution centers nationwide, and is one of two leading national distributors in the natural products industry. United Natural Foods, Inc. carries and distributes over 30,000 products to more than 7,000 customers nationwide. The Company serves a wide variety of retail formats including conventional supermarket chains, natural product superstores and independent retail operators, cooperatives and buying clubs. For more information on United Natural Foods, Inc., visit the Company's web site at http://www.unfi.com.
A sale will mean that all BP members will get a piece of the sale price - and this can be a considerable amount of money for some stores. BP is very strong financially, provides excellent service to its members (including buying clubs) and is negotiating from a position of strength. Rumor has it that UNF has effectively undercut the coop warehouse in the northeast, crippling it, much like Whole Foods has crippled some of the coops around the country.
If BP sells out to UNF, then food coops in the Midwest will be relying on UNF as a primary supplier. UNF's primary customer is Whole Foods. Interestingly, BP's primary customer is Whole Foods, too. This seems very precarious for the coop retails and would require major changes in the coop retail business, much like the other locally-owned grocery retails have had to do in the past to address consolidation in the grocery warehousing and processing sectors.
The BP website now has the text of Q & A concerning their proposed sale to United Natural Foods. This is substantial and informative material, and I urge everyone concerned or curious about the proposal to check it out at http://www.bpco-op.com, under "news and info."
Something that Donella Meadows, a leader in the sustainable development movement said pertains. She said: "If we believe that its effectively over, that we are fatally flawed, that the most greedy and short-sighted among us will always be permitted to rule, that we can never constrain our consumption and destruction, that each of us is too small and helpless to do anything, that we should just give up and enjoy our SUVs while they last, well, then yes, it's over. That's the one way of believing and behaving that gives us a guaranteed outcome. Personally, I don't believe that stuff at all. I don't see myself or the people around me as fatally flawed. Everyone I know wants polar bears and three-year-olds in our world. We are not helpless and there's nothing wrong with us except the strange belief that we are helpless and there's something wrong with us. All we need to do, for the bear and ourselves, is to stop letting that belief paralyze our minds, hearts, and souls." |
See also:
http://twincities.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6662&group=webcast
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