Bloum

Bloum is an approved Social and Democratic Economy cooperative company, located in Forest, supported by nearly 650 cooperators. More than a store, Bloum is a citizen project that promotes sustainable, local and accessible food while developing a more inclusive and participatory economy.

The Bloum social cooperative is a citizens' initiative that stems from a sustainable neighbourhood project (QuartierWielsWijk) and a GASAP (solidarity purchasing group for small-scale agriculture).

The idea was born in 2015 with the opening of an organic bulk store in Antwerp and the beginnings of BeesCoop in Schaerbeek. The Wiels district already had its GASAP with a few well-committed members. In a few months, after lots of meetings, meetings, coaching and inspiring visits to cooperatives in Germany, a small nucleus was formed to launch the Forest cooperative!

The desire was to create a store in our neighborhood of organic, local and bulk products as well as a meeting place, offering an alternative to the supermarket, a different economic model, products accessible to a greater number of people.

After starting out in the form of group purchases in a garage once a month, we opened a first very " roots " store on rue des Alliés, entirely managed by volunteers.

The SCRLFS Bloum was officially born on December 8, 2016. A few months later, we found a premises more suited to our activity, in the same rue des Alliés.

At the same time, we had gathered enough cooperators supporting the project to hire a manager.

Today, Bloum has more than 400 cooperators and feeds some 600 eaters in total. The store runs with a manager, three employees, a person on an integration contract, a small team of students and a few volunteers.

Other related activities are carried out by working groups led by the cooperators and members of the Administrative Body.