Co-op fills healthy niche.

Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard

GLENADA - For Ron Sjogren, it's worth the $50 he coughed up to join the Real Food Co-Op just south of Florence - and not just because he can enjoy the member discount on the store's organic coffee, local produce and bulk liquids.

It's that he can't find much of it anywhere else in town.

"Some things cost a little more here," Sjogren said. "But sometimes they taste better, too."

When the health food store Salmonberry Naturals closed last summer, it left a void in the city of rhododendrons for the kinds of food that doesn't normally line supermarket shelves. Nature's Corner Cafe & Market does carry several organic produce and grocery items in its cafe, but it's less of a one-stop shop.

"We were like, `What are we going to do?'?" said Jen Nelson, the part-time business manager and the grocery's only paid employee.

That's why a group of health-conscious residents decided to set up a cooperative retail grocery across from Honeyman Nursery and Landscaping on Highway 101.

There was some debate about how to structure it, Nelson said. Some of the founding members preferred a buying club, where individual families sign up to receive weekly deliveries of produce and other food from local farms and distributors.

But, in the end, the group decided on a co-op, staffed by volunteers and funded in part by membership dues.

The store opened last summer with 70 members, and has since grown to 110,

There are now a handful of food co-ops in the region, although having one in a town the size of Florence remains relatively rare, according to industry sources.

The trade Web site www.cooperativegrocer.coop lists only a dozen cooperative groceries in Oregon, including three in Portland, two in Corvallis, four on the coast and one in Eugene: The Grower's Market at 454 Willamette Street.

Nationally, cooperatives are holding their own, even against chain supermarket competitors that also are responding to increased demand for natural and organic products.

The Natural Foods Merchandiser reported a 10.7 percent growth in 2006, according to the Cooperative Grocer, a magazine published for managers and directors of food co-ops.

Food co-ops grew at an even bigger rate: 12.35 percent, with profits averaging 1.46 percent, according to the Food Marketing Institute's Annual Financial Review. That's the highest profit level the industry has recorded in the 37 years it has tracked performance.

Mostly, that growth has come from co-ops that cropped up in the 1960s and 70s, opening new stores or expanding their facilities.

In the past three years, Cooperative Grocer reports, more than a quarter of existing co-ops either opened a new store, moved to a large space or renovated its existing market.

"Natural organic shoppers, the core of co-op shoppers, have been pretty loyal," said Dave Gutknecht, editor of the trade publication. "So sales growth for individual stores as well as overall has been fairly strong, ahead of the rest of the retail industry and ahead of inflation."

Co-ops' success traditionally has been in northern states, Gutknecht added, rooted in socialist traditions from European settlers that moved there and found co-ops a good way to find a cleaner, pesticide-free food supply.

Now the appeal has broadened.

"More and more people really want better, cleaner, safer food and more knowledge of where their food is produced," Gutknecht said.

Browsing the two aisles in the 400-square-foot space on U.S. 101, Real Foods' niche is obvious.

There's fair-trade coffee from Cafe Mam in Eugene for $6.90 a pound, local liberty, gold rush and honey crisp apples, Rogue Creamery cheese, organic coconut butter, bulk quinoa elbows, local eggs and local buffalo. The store receives deliveries three times a week.

"If you like to buy organic," Sjogren said, "this is one of the better places to come."

The business has been so successful that its board is considering a move north of the Siuslaw Bridge, where the store could have a bigger space and attract more customers.

"We're limited because of our size and because we're not in the city limits," said Liz Purtell, one of the founders of the co-op. "We're not making a lot of money, but we're providing healthy food at a reasonable price."

Winston Ross can be reached at [phone] or at [e-mail].