High Plains Food Co-op receives rural business enterprise grant
By Mary Holle

The newly formed High Plains Food Co-op, a loosely knit group of livestock producers, consumers and farmers, recently received good news that boosts their efforts to have an up-and-running web-based cooperative by next spring.

HPFC was awarded a $40,000 rural business enterprise grant from the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development program. Plus, the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, the co-op's sponsoring organization, will donate $23,000 in matching funds.

"We are hoping this grant can be a catalyst to help the co-op get off the ground," Bob Mailander, director of the RMFU Cooperative Development Center, said. "The grant will be used basically for two things…one is for a feasibility business plan and market study and two, for connecting consumer groups with producers.

"We need a person to work with four structures - production, storage, packaging and transportation," he continued. "We will also be looking for an efficient way to move the product from the plains to the target market in the front range."

The grant money is good news for the fledgling cooperative. Organizers have had the idea of an area food cooperative on the back burner for several years.

Wanting to provide farmers with another income source by direct marketing their products is one of the hopes of the RMFU cooperative Development Center's director.

Co-op history

Chris and Sherri Schmidt brought the idea of a food cooperative home to Rawlins County after attending a weekend meeting in Lindsborg in the spring of 2005.

A year later, RMFU, the Ogallala Commons, Rawlins County HomeTown Competitiveness and Rawlins County Economic Development held a food workshop in March in Atwood.

Another year passed and more people became intrigued with the idea.

RCED Director Chris Sramek helped Mailander and Ogallala Commons Director Darryl Birkenfeld contact area producers, food services personnel and consumers for an organizational meeting. About 30 people from several communities in Northwest Kansas and Northeast Colorado attended the March 29 meeting at the Aberdeen in Atwood.

Jo Hagney and Becky Roberson of St. Francis agreed to be the co-chairman of the HPFC steering committee. The committee has been alternating meeting sites between St. Francis and Atwood monthly since that time.

Monthly meeting update

Details concerning delivery, distribution, producer surveys and target areas were discussed at the July 19 meeting in Atwood.

Mailander told the group last Thursday that the grant will also assist in helping pay for the update to the software program that will be used by HPFC. The software was created by the Oklahoma Food Co-op and provided for free to other food cooperatives.

HPFC will need to update the software, but it is also usable as is, Vicki Hunnicutt-Bishara, of the Weston A. Price Foundation in Denver, said.

Sramek suggested using the domain name now and providing information on the reserved web page as a tool for recruiting more producers.

"We need to get the web page up as soon as possible to explain the soty of the co-op," he said. Sramek suggested that anyone interested in providing products for the co-op should contact him at 785-626-3640 for more information.

The committee's next meeting will be in Yuma, Colo., where the group will meet with several consumer groups.