Who We Are
This part of the web site is devoted to showing you a little more about who we are and how we serve the UMass community. Here we invite you to learn about how People's Market functions as a business and get to know the people you see brewing coffee or running around the halls with cases of iced tea. Located in the student union of the University of Massachusetts, People's Market has long been known as the best place on campus for organic coffee, herbal teas, fresh bagels and fruit, gourmet cheese, healthy snacks, and refreshing cold drinks. As one of the oldest student-run business at UMass, People's Market is also a living classroom in business management, the food industry, and collective leadership. Under the guidance of the UMass Center for Student Business, just about every aspect of our business is managed by full time UMass students. This means that the friendly clerk that greets you at the cash register could be the same person tracking invoices from our vendors, designing our advertisements, working with local charities, or updating this website!
At People’s Market, we have a strong commitment to providing customers with food products from socially and environmentally responsible companies. We are the original and best source on campus for 100% organic, fair-trade coffee, which we proudly serve at competitive prices thanks to our coffee supplier, Dean’s Beans. People’s Market offers many delicious choices for vegetarians and vegans, like our heavenly vegan pastries from Café Evolution, and we do not carry any meat products. We have been active in the boycott of Coca-Cola because of their unacceptable environmental and labor practices, discontinuing one of our most profitable products in solidarity. We are also committed to supporting local businesses by providing the UMass campus with excellent local food products from Benson’s Bagels, The Henion Bakery, Good For You Tea, and many others. Please see our Products page for more information and updates on the many diverse and delicious products carried by our store.
Our Mission
- To provide a place for the University community to buy natural and fresh foods.
- To provide the University community with an alternative eating place.
- To promote the co-operative and collective movements.
- To educate and inform the community about nutritional, political, and social issues in the realm of the food industry.
How We Operate
People’s Market is run as a collective where every employee is a co-manager with equal input in our business decisions. We pride ourselves in defying the conventional wisdom that businesses are best run by executives by being a financially self-sustaining collective for over 35 years! As a result, we have a knowledgeable and passionately dedicated staff while maintaining a working environment of transparency, equality, and respect. At our weekly All-Staff meeting on Monday nights, we tackle issues and consider proposals in a round table discussion based on the Rochdale Principles. Every member holds veto power over proposed policy changes, which means that 100% of our membership must consent to a policy before it is put in place. Far from immobilizing us, this structure fosters empathy and compromise and has helped us through many difficult problems both equitably and efficiently.
Many of the tasks of managing the market are divided among elected committees of co-managers, such as the bookkeeping, advertising, and maintenance committees. Each co-manager must sit on at least one committee in addition to working in the store, so everyone takes part in both managing and running the market. As a student-run business, we serve as a unique and powerful educational resource for UMass students, and the real world business experience our members receive leads to better employment opportunities after college. We hire new members in the first two weeks of most semesters. If you are a full-time UMass student and you think you have what it takes to work at People’s Market, click here for more information!
History
People’s Market was founded by two 19-year-old students, Ellen Gavin and Gail Sullivan, with the goal of creating a non-profit, community-owned grocery store to provide UMass students with healthy and affordable food. With seed money from the UMass Student Government Association, People’s Market opened its doors on February 12th, 1973. Concerns over rising education costs, control over student space, and an increasing corporate presence on campus were common among university students in the 1970s. These motivations are reflected in the market’s politically-charged opening press release in the Daily Collegian, available here. A 2003 interview with the founders, available here [UMass Magazine], also details some of the market’s early history.
As the third student business at UMass, People’s Market operated during its early years as an independent student organization with little guidance or oversight from the university. In 1975, the Center for Student Business was founded as a central resource for the growing number of student businesses on campus. By 1984 this number totaled 13, including a record store and a bus company, but managerial issues caused many of them to shut down. People’s Market was one of eight student businesses to stay open during the 1980s. One reason for the market’s success during this time was our ability to adapt our product line to our customers’ needs. We no longer carried bins of dry beans and flour, but students were able to come in for a coffee and bagel on their way to class or for a cool drink and a snack on a hot afternoon.
Today, People’s Market is in its 37th year. With increasing public awareness about the need for responsibility in the food industry, our customers understand more than ever the importance of having an alternative food market on campus. Our popular catering service, started in 2000, provides food platters and coffee for on-campus events. Come by the market and see for yourself! We're located in first floor of the student union on the side facing the campus pond.