Writing a paper about the Davis Food Co-op
Welcome, and thank you for your interest! We hope this will be a helpful and informative tour that will help you find the resources you need to help you write a paper about the Davis Food Co-op.
Contacting Davis Food Co-op people for information
Our staff and Board of Directors are listed, along with e-mail contacts on our Contact Us Page. The best way to contact us to ask questions or arrange interviews is via e-mail. Please don’t drop by looking for information without an appointment—our work schedules just don’t allow for that.
While we are happy to answer the specific, informed questions you may have about particular aspects of our Co-op and its departments, please remember that we are very busy and won’t be as happy about answering vague inquiries or questions we have already answered on our website. If you wish to contact any of our staff or directors with research questions, please follow these guidelines:
• Allow a reasonable amount of time for your inquiry to be answered. 1-2 weeks should be fine, but if you send off an e-mail on Monday night hoping you’ll get your answers by your due date at noon on Tuesday, you are likely to be very disappointed.
• Make sure you’re addressing the right person for your question. Our Store Manager or General Manager might be able to tell you how the organic certification process has changed the face of milk and cheese production in the Northern California region in the past ten to fifteen years, but our Dairy manager is probably the better person to ask.
• Ask specific questions based on what you’ve already learned elsewhere. “How many members does the Davis Food Coop have?” is a question anyone can find the answer to on our website; if, however, you were interested in finding out what percentage of our shoppers are members, or what percentage of our members are senior citizens, our Membership Director may have an estimate for you.
• Acknowledge and accept that we do not necessarily have all the answers. You might be looking for specific statistics (such as what percentage of our shoppers are members) when we are only able to provide our best estimates. In general, we are better at offering opinions and estimates, or identifying trends, than we are at providing hard & fast facts and figures. Try to gear your questions more to the former than the latter.
• Always be respectful, and we will thank you for your cooperation!
Outside Resources About Co-ops
www.cooperativegrocer.coop is the website of the industry magazine for consumer cooperative grocery stores, which includes an index of topics with links to previously published articles on such diverse issues as governance, education, marketing, and sustainability. This site also includes a directory of Food Co-ops in the U.S., at the following link: www.cooperativegrocer.coop/coops/
The Go Co-op web site includes information about all sorts of cooperatives all across the nation.
For a more international perspective, check out www.cooponline.coop/about.html This is a UK-based site that provides information about and a directory of the many types of cooperative businesses in Great Britain. The Davis Food Co-op, and in fact the modern cooperative movement as a whole, trace our ancestry back to Rochdale in the U.K., and the original Co-op store in Toad Lane.
Further Related Links
www.usda.gov is the website for the United States Department of Agriculture; this is an excellent starting point to gather information on current issues in agriculture, nutrition, and natural resources.
www.ccof.org is the website for California Certified Organic Farmers.
www.caff.org is the website for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers.