Cooperative Force – awarded for cooperative momentum building over the past 12 months by a startup food co-op that has shown exceptional ability to utilize their vision to gain (or regain) community support and galvanize that support into the community power needed to get their cooperatively owned food co-op opened. 

The Blackberry Food Co-op was nominated for the 2025 Up & Coming Cooperative Force award because of how they have embraced the tools and support of the Food Co-op Initiative and other co-op development experts to convert their locally-owned farm stand store into a community owned co-op. Few startup food co-ops have taken on finding and learning from as much available knowledge as possible about all aspects of organizing a startup food co-op all in their first year of organizing as Blackberry Food Co-op has. 

This co-op turns their learning into action, having already successfully mobilized to ensure the current farm stand business found a new location when they rapidly had to move, and now mobilizing to purchase and run that business as a community. 

The winners of all the Up and Coming Conference awards will be announced live during the awards luncheon at the 2025 Up & Coming Startup Food Co-op Conference on Saturday, September 13th in Kalamazoo, MI.