It may be hard to imagine from today’s perspective—what with mainstream culture’s acceptance of organics, locally-grown produce, and the like—but Twin Cities food cooperatives were once rife with intrigue and occasional violence. During the mid 1970s, the co-op movement in Minneapolis and St. Paul split into two factions. On one side were the “whole foods” folks who wanted to provide healthful and socially-responsible alternatives to the big grocery stores. On the other side were politically-motivated activists (the “Co-op Organization,” or “CO”) who were most interested in serving the interests of the “working class.” CO adherents mocked their whole foods counterparts as “middle class college kids and health food nuts who used the co-ops to supply their own whimsical food needs.”
Tensions between the two groups turned violent on January 9, 1976, when several CO members assaulted two workers at Minneapolis’s Seward Community Co-op in an attempt to establish control over the cities’ cooperative movement. The take-over at Seward was brief and ultimately failed. The incident helped galvanize opposition to the CO and its methods. By the end of the decade, it was clear that “hippies” had won and the “Marxists” had lost in what are now known as the Twin Cities co-op wars.
This post was written by Dave Kenney and originally published on MN70s. Follow MN70s on Twitter: @mn70s.
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History of the coop wars: Storefront Revolution
The definitive history of the co-op wars was written by Craig Cox. This is what the Hennepin County Library says about the book:
Craig Cox, co-editor of the previously aforementioned Minneapolis Observer, wrote a history of the co-op wars between the hippies and the Marxists in Minneapolis in the 1970s. The hippies wanted natural organic foods and the the Marxists wanted basic food stuffs for the proletariat. There were conflicts over warehouse distribution and the Marxists in some cases used force to intimidate co-ops.
Cox was the editor of Scoop, the co-op newsletter at the time and writes the history with the immediacy of someone who lived through it. We have Scoop here in Special Collections and in our periodicals department on 3rd floor of Minneapolis Central. We also have Storefront Revolution here in Special Collections and there is a copy that can be checked out from the 2nd floor of Minneapolis Central, Call Number: HD3446.T85C69 1994.
(if you don’t want to check it out of the library, I’m sure Craig has a few that he’d part with, for a price. Its a very interesting book)