After more than a decade of development, planning, fundraising and construction, Rogers Park finally has its own cooperative grocery store. Wild Onion Market opened its doors on June 12 to a crowd of owners and neighbors who packed the store, perusing local produce, bulk dry goods and organic staples. Speeches from the co-op’s board, a ribbon cutting and the dulcet tones of Bengali music band Ochin Pakhi marked the grand opening.
Grocery co-ops are collectively owned businesses, financed by the same people who shop at them. A wave of co-ops popped up in the U.S.
in the 1960s as counterculture hubs that married ideas about collective labor and natural foods. These were alternatives to commercial grocery stores, places to get nutritional yeast and Ezekiel bread. Many of these early co-ops required their owners to work in the store for a certain number of hours each month and restricted sales to owners.
Some of the co-ops from this era still survive today; the Park Slope Co-op, which opened in 1973 in New York City, is one of the most famous examples. But despite its size and access to local produce, Chicago has never been a city overflowing with co-ops. The Dill Pickle Food Co-op opened in Logan Square in 2009, followed by the Sugar Beet Co-op in Oak Park in 2015.
Wild Onion’s opening, however, might be the first in a wave across the city. Six others are in development, including the Chicago Market in Uptown and the Austin Community Food Co-op. Wild Onion general manager Te.
