Jamaica Plain's City Feed could soon get a new owner - a worker-owned food co-op

Equal Exchange, which specializes in selling coffee, bananas and other foods from small farms around the world, is close to an agreement to buy Jamaica Plain's two City Feed and Supply stores - the original "little Feed" on Boylston Street and the larger Centre Street store.

The stores would be the first retail outlets for Equal Exchange, which mainly sells its products to supermarkets and which has three coffeehouses in Washington state, Ohio and Illinois. It has strong roots in Massachusetts, where it was founded and where it has its headquarters, in West Bridgewater. It formerly had a cafe near North Station, which closed in September. The co-op has 120 owners - all of them Equal Exchange workers.

City Feed owners Kristine Cortese and David Warner reported the news in a message to customers yesterday:

Over the course of this year we have been in conversation with Equal Exchange, discussing the possibility of Equal Exchange purchasing City Feed and Supply. The deal is not yet complete but is progressing towards completion and we wanted to let you all know before you hear it elsewhere.

We will start meeting with neighborhood groups to seek approval for transferring licensing, so the word will be getting out.

In 2017, City Feed turned to crowdfunding to buy the Little Feed building, which had been closed for repairs for several months. Cortese and Warner raised $100,000 from their fans - or $40,000 more than they had originally sought.

Equal Exchange started in 1986 and originally focused on "fair trade" coffee purchased from small farmers in Nicaragua.

Jamaica Plain has not had a co-operatively owned food market since the Harvest Co-op closed last year.

H/t Sam.