One afternoon in the fall of 2003, 36 consumers and several volunteers gathered in the basement of an Oklahoma City church to sort and purchase products from twenty local producers. They generated $3,500 in sales, and the opening day of the Oklahoma Food Coop (OFC) was determined to have been a great success.
Today, seven years later, OFC has over 3,000 members and processes up to 700 orders monthly. The participating producers – all two hundred of them - generate about $70,000 in monthly sales from 4,000 locally produced products. The organization manages storage space, a warehouse and owns several trucks. It has transformed from a small buying club to a formal food hub.
