During the pandemic, three Black and Latinx owned worker cooperatives came together to meet community food needs: ChiFresh Kitchen, Cooperativa Visionarias, and Cocina Compartida de Trabajadores Cooperativistas. Collectively, the three cooperatives distributed more than 100,000 meals over the past two years to south and west side communities hardest hit by Covid19. Each of these food production / catering companies also has a mission of building a racially just food system and demonstrating that another economic system is possible - one that values human dignity and life and the environment first, and rejects that self-interest and greed are at the core of who we are as people. As worker cooperatives, every worker in the business is eligible to be a co-owner and share in the decision-making and any surplus the company makes. In this presentation, we introduce the cooperative model and its potential to transform the food system in Chicago and the economy more broadly. With our three companies as examples, we will dive into the benefits, challenges, and transformative nature of democratic businesses.
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