密歇根新闻广播 密歇根第一个合作社式啤酒厂落户大急流城

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Michigan's booming brewery² industry just added a fresh, new ingredient to the growing business of beer making: a cooperative model.

Jim Jones is a board member and director of High Five Cooperative Brewery in Grand Rapids. He joined Stateside to talk about this new approach to making beer as a co-op.

"A co-op is a business organization that is owned by the people who use the services," said Jones. "That can be true for anything ranging from credit unions to rural electric co-op to food co-op, a housing co-op, or in this case, a brew¹ pub co-op."

The regular membership, or to become a "member-owner" as Jones calls it, is $150. When you buy a share you become a part-owner of the company and if you also have the option to buy additional investment shares. The money is being used to pay for start-up expenses as High Five seeks to buy their own equipment so they can start brewing³ as an official organization.

The Tecumseh Brewing Company made headlines in 2014 as Michigan's first crowd-funded brewery. The brewery became the first success story of the Michigan Invests Locally Exemption⁴ (MILE) as they raised $175,000 to get off the ground.

Jones explained that what they are doing is very different.

"In a crowd-funding model ?investment is not really the right word. It's more like a donation," said Jones. "You don't have any control or ownership of the organization that you're giving the money to. In a co-op, when you have an investment ?you have the ability to direct the co-op or become involved in the co-op in some way. Usually that would mean a vote for the members on the board of directors."

Listen to the full interview below to hear more about their brewery's plans and how the nation's first co-op brewery in Austin, Texas has inspired them.