Customers in a “Super Cafoutch”, January 19, 2023 in Marseille (AFP / Nicolas TUCAT)
“I could no longer bear to push my shopping cart”: far from the impersonal neon-lit aisles, the shelves of the “Super Cafoutch”, the first cooperative supermarket in Marseille, offer an alternative to mass distribution for consumers in search of meaning and low prices. .
After La Louve in 2016 in Paris, created on the model of the Park Slope Food Coop in New York, around fifteen non-profit supermarkets have opened in France, such as SuperQuinquin in Lille or La Cagette in Montpellier.
With Super Cafoutch, it is therefore the turn of the second city in France, since September, to have such a store, owned by its customer-cooperators. The only obligation to be able to do your shopping: work there on a voluntary basis for three hours a month.
After maneuvering a pallet truck loaded with Zoumaï, a beer brewed in Marseille, Mercedes Gilliom vacuums the storeroom. This 40-year-old American is one of the 1,260 cooperators allowing the Super Cafoutch to open its doors from Tuesday to Saturday, not far from the Old Port.
“For me, it’s important to know that my purchase is not part of a hyper-capitalist system”, but “at the same time, I really want to drink good coffee”, she summarizes.
To be economically viable, the structure will have to reach around 2,000 cooperators, “60% of whom would do their shopping with an average basket of 150 euros per month”, specifies its president, Eva Chevallier, 68 years old.
A customer in a “Super Cafoutch”, January 19, 2023 in Marseille (AFP / Nicolas TUCAT)
Contrary to what its name might suggest – a “cafoutch” designating in Marseilles a badly tidy reduced -, “the work slots are really very organized, we know exactly what we have to do”, all in a very friendly atmosphere, says Jacqueline Meyer, a 68-year-old biographer.
The advantage is that “we don’t have difficult customers since everyone will go to the checkout, weighing, reception”, explains Alain Jacquier, 65, captain this Wednesday of the team responsible for three hours of running the store.
– “There is no fatality ” –
“Do you want me to print the ticket?”: at the checkout, Emilie has just registered the basket of a new cooperator.
A customer in a “Super Cafoutch”, January 19, 2023 in Marseille (AFP / Nicolas TUCAT)
Since the opening of the supermarket in September, 500 additional members have joined. Many young people, but also retired people, the average age of cooperative members being around 40 years old.
“It’s great, the people are nice, the gentleman at the reception told me about his trip to Peru while talking to me about chocolate”, laughs Yansé Bailly, 35, who leaves with a crate loaded with pasta. , chocolate bars, crisps and cancoillotte. A “typically Marseille” product, quips the cinema prop maker (Editor’s note: this cheese is from Franche-Comté).
Raphaël Belliot Darmon, a 25-year-old student, is happy to be able to “buy good quality products for much less than in organic shops” and to “take part in the decision” to buy them.
A vegetable section in a “Super Cafoutch”, January 19, 2023 in Marseille (AFP / Nicolas TUCAT)
The meat comes from the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, the cheese from Cantal, the fruits and vegetables are organic and local: “we work with platforms, groups, suppliers who are somewhat in the same spirit as us”, often in an ethical approach, says Eva Chevallier.
If they are indeed shareholders of the Super Cafoutch, by purchasing ten shares for 100 euros – a single share at 10 euros for the most modest -, the return on investment expected by the cooperators is far from the logic of market.
Savings on payroll and intermediaries allow the supermarket to apply a fixed margin of 20% to all products.
“Today, we have 2,500 references, the goal is to reach 5,000 to reach as many people as possible”, notes Hugues Denihan, 32, one of the three permanent employees of Super Cafoutch.
A customer in a “Super Cafoutch”, January 19, 2023 in Marseille (AFP / Nicolas TUCAT)
So of course, recognizes this employee, “the context of inflation also plays a role” in the decision to join the cooperative.
But “it goes far beyond”, insists the president: “It is also a model according to which we would like our society to function, in a more collaborative, more friendly way”, so that “everyone finds their account”, including producers, on whom “we will never put pressure to have the lowest possible price”.
“From critic, we went to actor”, summarizes Alain Jacquier.
© 2023 AFP
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