Your Memories & Stories
“Stirring the peanut butter! Somehow, the task of stirring the separated oil into the huge 5 gallon buckets of natural peanut butter regularly fell on my volunteer shift during the early to mid-80s. It was hard to do! I liked cutting up the giant slabs of cheese much better. :-)”
~Lauren Bryant
“I moved back to Bloomington in August of 1976 and immediately joined the "new"coop. I was a working member on the "Cheese collective" We cut and packaged cheese on Friday nights. There was a wonderful sense of community in our group. It was a social event as well as working for the coop. When the second store opened on 3rd street and there were financial troubles I bought several memberships for friends in an attempt to support the second store. I later became a board member. I have always loved the coop and thehoptions it provides for shopping in our community.My thanks to all those are keeping it going. Congrats on 50 years!”
~Annamaria Mecca
“I discovered the co-op as an IU student. Wandered in one day from the alley and the smells just felt familiar yet wasn’t sure exactly what they were. Still feel that way sometimes when I enter the stores today. I would get a huge homemade cookie which filled me up and cost next to nothing. Which is how much money I had back then as a college student paying my way through school! Simple yet good memory. Hadn’t really thought I’d stay in Bloomington. Took awhile to join the co-op. 50 years later, still here!”
~Ellen Post
“When I first signed up to be an owner-member, that first month I checked out the website and saw that they were doing this 60-second shopping spree giveaway. I thought "there's no shot this'll work, but why not", and somehow ended up winning it? It felt like such an exciting little treat to celebrate my first month as a member, and all the staff were super lovely to get to meet during the event. What a crazy 60 seconds! Since then, I've been making Bloomingfoods a regular part of my routine after work, to the point where several of the folks there know me as the guy-with-the-headset, which is always very funny. Shoutout to the downtown location's hot bar for many, many evenings worth of absolutely bangin' mac and cheese!”
~Mik Breeze