Announcements

We hope you are having a happy Spring and are looking forward to Summer. This is such a busy, busy, busy time of year; be sure to stop and smell the flowers, have a spot of tea, and thank the pollinators.🐝

We will have our First Friday Food Cooperative Social this Friday, June 5th, 5-7pm at Jacki’s house/farm. RSVP on Facebook HERE. Please come, ask questions, share ideas, and connect. 🗓️

On Sunday, June 14th, 1-3pm, we will have our next monthly meeting about starting a federation (a cooperative of cooperatives) in order to build a cooperative market and community center. This will be at Flora Bodega.🌱

Order pickups will now be at Jacki’s house/farm on Saturdays from 2-4pm. Home delivery is also available. Please select one or the other at checkout. Note: The order window is now Saturday to Saturday. Meaning, what you order by midnight on Saturday, June 6th, can be picked up on Saturday, June 13th. 🛒 See the calendar below for the new schedule!

A Message from Bridget

Dear Community,

As we transition into the major market season in a different format from last year, I would like to share a bit about what this transition looks like for us and why we are moving forward in this way. Please reach out with any further questions!

First, let me re-introduce us. My name is Bridget and I worked at a local health food store for 9 years, until December of 2024. In that time, I learned a great deal about the grocery industry, as well as a great deal about how community, power, and systems work. In 2020, my co-founder of the Redbud Food Cooperative, Jacki, moved back to Oklahoma and started working at the store with me. We connected about our collective decades working to build local food infrastructure, sovereignty, and community in Norman. We both learned a great deal about what we want in our local food system and what we don’t. While we are very different people, with different – some might say opposite but complementary skill sets – we share a fundamental belief that all people should have the knowledge, resources, and community infrastructure to feed themselves. We share a distrust of corporate power, as well a deep care for the earth and the bounty she provides. 

Through vital community partnerships, we were able to offer a space for our community to access local food that is free of synthetic pesticides from last July to December 2025. While we still deeply value the partnerships we have made with the OKC Food Hub, ReSupply Norman, the Earth Cafe & Deli, and St. John’s Epsicopal Church; the transition and growth of our partners and our own project let us know we needed to try something different in 2026. 

The OKC Food Hub is still offering a CSA box pick up in Norman, now to be hosted at the OU Food Pantry. Here are some words about their growth and transition:

“Everything is from Oklahoma farmers who are stewards of the land and intentional in their farm practices, but this year’s farm share will include some produce from farmers who use synthetic sprays. There will be plenty of produce from farmers using organic practices, but as the farm share program grows we aren’t able to exclusively source from those farmers. The good news is we’ll be able to include more fruit – peaches, blueberries, blackberries, apples! – since the orchard will spray to save a crop. To read more about our farmers and their practices, you can click here.”

The ultimate goal of the Redbud Food Cooperative has always been to provide produce free of any synthetic pesticides. We have also always wanted to work towards a full service grocery store, which means that we would likely have outgrown the CSA model soon, anyway. Our friends at the OKC Food Hub are growing and so are we. This year, Jacki built a web app – you can make a free account and explore our stock on hand HERE – for us to build a wider variety of products that will be stocked at our future brick and mortar cooperative grocery store. 

We decided to move away from the CSA box model and make space for our customers to purchase items a la carte. In addition to local produce that is free of synthetic pesticides, our customers can purchase local dairy products, locally made hummus and sauces, local honey, as well as other organic grocery staples that we don’t have a local source for such as seaweed snacks, coconut oil, and organic flour. This also will allow us more flexibility to buy from a wider array of local producers directly.

Finally, at least for the Summer or until we can grow the pop-up market to fill St. John’s Parish Hall, our pickup location will be Jacki’s house. This is where we keep all of our stock on hand and will be a better fit for our current capacity. We also offer a home delivery option in Norman. You can choose which you prefer when you go to your CART and select CHANGE PICKUP LOCATION.  In the spirit of making space for us to gather and organize this community effort, we will be hosting a First Friday Food Co-op Social on the first Friday of every month. The first will be June 5th, 5-7pm, at 1821 Elmhurst in Norman, rsvp HERE. Is there something you would like to see us add? Send us info@redbudfood.coop. Would you like to sell items through our web app? Please fill out our Producer Application HERE. We can’t wait to hear from you.

Much Love,

Bridget Burns, 

Co-founder, Redbud Food Cooperative

The Humans Behind the Vision

This is the section where we usually highlight one of our amazing producers. There is so much I have been wanting to share with you all about how Jacki and I are piecing this together. This month, I want to use this space to pull back the curtain a bit, and celebrate the ups and downs of our first year building this thing. 

Our ultimate vision for our work is to build a federation – like a cooperative of cooperatives. Jacki and I were plugged into similar spaces at different times over the course of several decades: the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, the Earth Cafe & Deli, etc. There has always been a need for a big local food infrastructure lift to be happening simultaneously in Oklahoma. Thankfully, in the last few years, we have seen many of these pieces come together. Our friends at the OKC Food Hub are filling gaps in distribution networks. Our friends at ReSupply and Flora Bodega are providing more room for local farmers to sell their product outside of farmers markets. I put together this Small is Beautiful Oklahoma holiday guide in December of last year, and there are so many more options than just a few years ago. And also, we need more. 

We want a full service, democratically run, worker owned grocery store in our home town. We want this place to be accessible to local farmers and have health food staples, vitamins, skincare, and places for our community to gather and learn and exchange resources and information. We want room for education. We want to upcycle and reduce waste. We want room for generations to gather together. When I worked at the corporate owned grocery store where Jacki and I met, my favorite part was that I got to see my community’s elders, parents, workers, disabled folks, youth, and babies all under one roof. We don’t have enough spaces like that anymore. Where do you meet friends these days? Where do you connect with a mentor? Where do you post your community fliers? Who do you talk to about your garden? How do you build community?

It would take years for us to build a space like this on our own. But right now, we have found ourselves in the midst of an opportunity. The former Albertson’s, soon to be a former Homeland, off east 12th and Alameda will soon be available. We could never fill that space on our own, but with a group of other local businesses, we could. For this reason, a portion of our organizing energy has been directed into hosting monthly meetings about forming a federation with our first project to be establishing a cooperative market and community center in the east 12th and Alameda location, or another similar location. Our next such meeting will be on Sunday, June 14th, 1-3 PM, at Flora Bodega

As you can see, we are working to chip away at the steps of building this space as we are able. Currently, all proceeds for the groceries you buy from us go towards buying what we need next: restocks, coolers, refrigerators, etc. Neither of us are taking any salary at this time, but are instead tracking our hours in sweat equity model, with a plan to deduct this sweat equity from our future co-owner shares. We both also have full time jobs: Jacki is a landscaper and business coach, I facilitate Transformative Justice processes through my job at Foundation for Liberating Minds. This is a labor of love to build the foundation for what we believe we can build together. 

Additionally, my health has had some drastic changes in the last few years. I have several bad chronic fatigue days a month, taking me out of commission and confining me to bed rest. I have always been a people person, and I loved being able to see so many of you each week at the store and have intentional conversations with each of you. However, I have had to learn to work at a more steady pace these days. A monthly social to organize this project and connect more deeply better reflects my current capacity. And finally, we need some more support to continue to grow. Please take a look at the next section on how YOU can best support this vision. 

Last year, I circulated a food cooperative survey. This is still open. Some of you may have filled it out, some of you may have not. These positions will not have a salary, but you would have the option to log sweat equity hours towards future cooperative co-owner shares. I would like to bring in more support for the following:

  • Community Outreach:
    • 1-2 people who capacity to support with social media promotion 5 hours per week. 
    • 3-6 people to join an Outreach Committee to coordinate and enact outreach plans with me. This could include personally texting or calling folks, knocking on doors, tabling at events, and more ideas we haven’t thought of just yet. 
  • Worker Owners (Business and Operations planning)
    • We are working to build our future staff of co-owners as we are building up our stock and customer base through the webapp. Are you a person with passion or experience working in grocery stores? Please reach out and let us know if you might be interested in joining us in working ownership. Stop by a social or reach out to ask any further questions.

Stay Connected

Don’t forget! You can catch us at our First Friday Food Co-op Social on the first Friday of every month. The first will be June 5th, 5-7pm, at 1821 Elmhurst in Norman, rsvp HERE. Is there something you would like to see us add? Send us info@redbudfood.coop. Would you like to sell items through our web app? Please fill out our Producer Application HERE. We can’t wait to hear from you.If you are interested in supporting the federation project to build a cooperative market and community center in east Norman, please consider joining us for our next such meeting will be on Sunday, June 14th, 1-3 PM, at Flora Bodega.

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What do YOU want in the app? Please let us know specific brands, flavors, sizes, etc. Email us at info@redbudfood.coop

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