Our co-op began as a food buying club in 1972 called Humboldt Common Market, run entirely by volunteers out of a small storefront in Arcata, California. On August 24, 1973, we incorporated as Arcata Cooperative, Inc. and moved to the old Seely & Titlow building at 975 H Street (now Northtown Books), held our first election of our Board of Directors and hired our first paid workers. Only a couple of years later we began a warehouse and trucking operation.

We are always hard at work improving our member services, product selection, and the customer experience in our stores. Our Board of Directors creates a strategic plan every five years with involvement from our membership to help guide our direction. Our current focus is on making the Co-op a welcoming community hub, pursuing racial and social equity in our practices, promoting environmental responsibility, fostering new cooperative ventures, creating a robust local food economy and ensuring the financial viability of the Co-op for the long term.

Since the beginning, we have worked with local farmers and food producers to bring local products to our shelves. We are proud to say that we have contracted with some organic farmers in the area for more than 35 years! Our push to promote products grown in Humboldt, Del Norte, and Trinity counties has driven the demand for local products in Humboldt County.

We’ve come a long way from our buying club days, but we stay true to our cooperative values and strive to create community through food.

“Commercial palm oil production is an ecological nightmare and the standards need to be raised to protect the land and the people suffering from the conventional palm oil supply chain. A Palm Done Right certification eliminates demand for monocultures and extraction destruction. By participating In Palm Done Right Month we hope to educate our shoppers and shift consumer demand to only support ethical palm oil sourcing.” Kiya Villarreal, Sustainability Coordinator North Coast Co-op”