Bountiful supply of produce comes to Maricopa

Maricopa residents will have plenty of tasty foods to choose from this month as Bountiful Baskets Co-op, a grassroots, all-volunteer, no contracts, no-catch co-operative with six current distribution sites, arrives in town. The Co-op will distribute foods in Maricopa June 16, beginning at 9 a.m.

As a group, the Co-op purchases items at deep discount or wholesale prices, and they are then dispensed evenly among participants. Co-op offerings include produce, spices, natural beef and dried goods.

The Co-Op’s Tanya Jolly said some 1,100 people are involved in putting the Co-op together. “Bountiful Baskets is not a grocery store; it is a participatory experience,” Jolly commented. “My partner and I are the directors, and each site has participants – a site manager plus site volunteers. We would be unable to do what we do – purchasing power, distribution efforts – without every participant. Not every person volunteers every time, of course, but every person’s participation is crucial to Bountiful Baskets’ success.”

Jolly noted the Co-op received lots of requests to come to Maricopa and other areas.
“Maricopa not only had many requests, they had several people willing to mentor at other sites to learn how to manage a site efficiently and true to our vision,” Jolly said. The Co-op does not “sell” anything at its distribution sites but pre-orders food and food items as a group and then distributes those items to participants.

For produce baskets the Co-op purchases from a warehouse that supplies produce to many area restaurants and grocery stores. The produce basket has the exact same contents that one would receive from a restaurant or a store. For natural beef the Co-op purchases cows from a local rancher and has them custom slaughtered. Dried goods are purchased from a grocery wholesaler in Los Angeles. This same wholesaler supplies a number of natural food markets in the Phoenix area and nationwide.

The Co-op currently serves the Phoenix Metro Area with distribution sites at Gilbert & McKellips Roads (Chaparral Park), Lindsay & Ray Roads, Johnson Ranch (at Indigo Sky Park), Power & Queen Creek Roads (Power Ranch), Ironwood & Ocotillo (in Pecan Creek) and Ray & I-10 (Mountain Vista Park).

With the Maricopa site and three others taking shape this month, Bountiful Baskets will have 10 distribution sites by the end of June.

For more information on Bountiful Baskets and the distribution site for Maricopa, e-mail: [email protected].