About Us

FEED Cooperative is a farmer and worker-owned food hub located in Petaluma, California's North Bay. Since 2011, FEED has been distributing produce sourced from our network of over 50 farms, predominantly located in Sonoma and Marin Counties, to businesses and households throughout the Bay Area. For over a decade, we have been committed to building the local food system towards a more transparent and ecologically-driven commerce space where the purchasing power of the customer is a direct investment into a farm-centered food system. FEED Cooperative champions a non-traditional, values-driven distribution model, rooted in biodiversity, transparency, community, and shared ownership.

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Coooperatively Owned

FEED is a cooperative, owned by our farmers and workers, building a farm-centric food system for the future. Supporting FEED is one of the most impactful ways you can support local farms. As a cooperative, we make important decisions collectively. FEED’s democratically-elected board of directors (meet them below) is equally composed of farmer and worker-owners. Farms who are member-owners of the cooperative sell a significant portion of their crops and products through FEED and, in turn, are prioritized in FEED’s sales – a mutual investment. By coming together as a cooperative, the critical mass of local farms collaborating enables FEED to reach new and bigger markets, thereby strengthening the power of our local food system. Being a cooperative also ensures that FEED centers the well-being of local farms for future generations. 

Wholesale

Through our wholesale program, we sell and deliver to restaurants, retailers, school districts, corporate campuses and food access programs. We are grateful to have so many businesses in our area who support FEED’s values and choose to purchase local and regional products for their menus, grocery shelves, dining halls and more. 

FEED Bins

Our FEED Bins are freshly harvested produce boxes sourced from myriad farms within our cooperative and greater network. Each week’s box is a delicious and diverse reflection of what’s in season. Customers can pick up their boxes at one of the local businesses we partner with (hubs) or choose home delivery. We also work with local non-profits and food banks (Farm to Pantry, Food for Thought, Redwood Empire Food Bank) to deliver FEED Bins each week to households and individuals facing food insecurity. 

Growing Practices

Farms growing produce for FEED adhere to our values of climate-smart practices, improving the soil through crop rotation, cover crops, mindful and minimal tilling. They tend their watershed and care for their bio-region through thoughtful water usage, integrative pest management, and clean, safe growing practices. We work with many certified organic and/or biodynamic farms. We also work with smaller-scale farms for whom certification doesn’t pencil out, but whose practices we carefully vet and wholly trust. 

Meet FEED Co•op’s Board of Directors

  • Ian’s first day with FEED was in 2015 when he was a college student working part-time in the warehouse. Fast forward to now, he has been with FEED full time for almost 4 years. He has had the opportunity to run farmers' markets at corporate campuses, help with the software transition to our new online platform, launch a crop planning effort, pursue 3rd party certification for the warehouse, and manage a crew in the warehouse during bin builds and warehousing nights. One of Ian’s most challenging and interesting experiences throughout his time with FEED has been the last couple of years, switching FEED’s business model to launch the FEED Bin program. In the beginning, it was challenging, with so many unknowns due to COVID, but Ian found it incredibly fulfilling working with such a great team from all levels of the company. He loves the culture of FEED and has enjoyed seeing the business grow throughout the years. Ian is excited to see what the future brings for FEED and the FEED community.

  • As Sonya’s farm enters its 10th season, she welcome the opportunity to serve FEED Cooperative as a producer board member. Her experience as both a direct-to-market producer and FEED Cooperative member has made clear to her how important the cooperative's role is in supporting a thriving local food and farming system.

    Watching herself and other farmers in the community work so hard in their own tiny, complex universes, Sonya am more convinced each year how much we need each other in order to thrive, persevere, and expand. She is honored to contribute to the cooperative's ability to support FEED’s individual operations and to its success as a whole.

    Sonya brings almost ten years of growing, management and marketing experience, a collaborative working style, and an appetite for supporting our farming community to her seat on the board.

  • Bill has spent most of his career driving & delivering, plus 10 cumulative years of experience in management. Given these diverse roles, he’s learned a lot about customer service. He has an understanding of what it takes to make sound decisions for a business to run smoothly. He’s successfully turned a disorganized situation into a smoother, more profitable model. Bill implemented the FEED Maintenance Department and now services FEED’s vans. Bill is OSHA certified to train future and existing employees on all types of fork-lifts. It's been his pleasure to start delivering to the schools in our region - everyone he comes in contact with is so welcoming. Delivering for FEED grants Bill the opportunity to witness the heart and soul of our community. So many people rely on FEED. Bill loves the people he works with, and the customers that he comes in contact with. Serving on the board this year will give him even more satisfaction.

  • Rose Madden is owner-operator of Pink Barn Farm, a small mixed-vegetable operation in Sebastopol, established in 2017. As a small-scale producer, being a part of the FEED community has been essential to Pink Barn Farm's business. Rose was thrilled with FEED's transition to a farmer-worker owned co-op and is proud to be a founding member. She has a deep appreciation for the important and groundbreaking work that the co-op is doing. She will bring a passion for problem solving and a thorough understanding of the unique challenges of being small-scale producer in our region.

  • George has been growing specialty microgreens, salad mixes and edible flowers since 2006. All of his crops are hand planted, tended and harvested using large-scale gardening techniques on a ¾ acre property.

    Through George’s experience in running this business and navigating markets for almost 20 years, he has gained a lot of insight and understanding of our local food scene. George believes this background equips him well to be a contributing member of FEED's board.

  • A husband and a father of two glorious children, one of Tim’s many mantras during the evolution of FEED Cooperative still rings true :: #doinitforthechildren

    Tim Page graduated from Santa Clara University in 1991 with a degree in Finance. This propelled him to his first job in the institutional investments sector at the foot of the Transamerica Pyramid building in San Francisco with Montgomery Securities. After several steps up the proverbial ladder, Tim witnessed many times the challenges people have integrating a truthful life with the aggregation of financial riches. The demise of character which typically coincides with a life of accumulation eventually dictated Tim’s major life evolution... on to the island of Maui and teachings at the feet of several Hawaiian elders.

    The greatest gift to his soul development were these years of learning of a present-tense and living indigenous culture. These teachings in plant medicine (la’au lapa’au), forgiveness on an individual and community level (ho’oponopono), and ecosystem stewardship and how it relates to a community’s “infrastructure” (ahupua’a) are to this day the very foundational tenets of FEED Cooperative.

    This new awareness as a cornerstone of Tim’s life, and the birthing of his beloved family (‘ohana), directly led to the creation of FEED Sonoma in his garage in June of 2011. Armed with a home built walk-in cooler powered by a 25,000 btu air conditioning unit and a CoolBot, and a single (non-refrigerated) box truck, life on Main Street Sebastopol became the birthing of our Food Hub!

    Tim’s role as Navigator at FEED Cooperative is focused on day to day viability and growth towards the self-ownership of our food system. His current projects are centered upon the cultivation of the next generation of food system leaders, the self-ownership of FEED Cooperative’s infrastructure, and evolving his tasks as Navigator into an advisory role, ensuring that generational succession in one’s food community happens on the farm level as well as the brick and mortar infrastructure and human resources that FEED Cooperative embodies.

  • Paige Phinney, Director at Kitchen Table Advisors for the San Francisco North Bay Region. Paige has advocated on behalf of small organic farmers professionally for 20+ years; as a foundational team member of three different farm advocacy entities, a farmworker, a lifelong learner, and a numbers geek. Her appreciation for our environment, grounded respect for the incredibly hard work of farming, and her pragmatic idealism inform her work in leading systems change efforts in the region and as a business coach for farmers.

    Paige's diverse experiences have touched upon many facets of our food system. Her time at Marin Organic, working on local farms, at Tara Firma Farms, at UC Cooperative Extension, and for over a decade at Kitchen Table Advisors have all built upon each other and deepened her values and purpose. Paige has years of experience facilitating groups of all sizes, financial modeling to inform business decisions, supporting individuals to mitigate risk and navigate inflection points by rooting in their values, and, moreover, to lead a life that is meaningful to them. Her work bridges the analytical mind and the heart in service of supporting environmentally conscious and marginalized farmers and ranchers, in greater service of planetary and societal health.

    Paige’s first encounter with FEED Sonoma was in the early days, while she was leading the operations at Tara Firma Farms. Tim and Paige kept in touch over the years and especially as she grew into her current role at KTA. Paige has witnessed firsthand and on several occasions the important role of FEED Cooperative to the economic viability of our local farms. She is committed to the success of the cooperative and hopes to bring her skills and passion to support and serve our local farming community as the Outside Director of the Board.