WinCo is terrific. It is employee-owned and buys local produce whenever possible.

That Dave Tracking Project letter is the best thing I can remember reading. Please follow up with Dave!

Re: "employee-owned": In the comment section under the Blogtown post of the letter about WinCo, I never followed up on Oregometry's reply. I'd asked what "worker-owned" really means here: Isn't it often just that the company gives stock ownership as one of their benefits? And WinCo is not even union, right?
Oregometry replied that "typically means that ownership of the company is held in part by each employee (as part of being hired, you receive a stake in the company). Each employee therefore gets a vote for the board of directors, etc, as shareholders do at major corporations. Bob's Red Mill is also worker-owned now, and Full Sail Brewing has proudly always been that way. And unions are a moot point at worker-owned enterprises, since there is no distinction between the powers of workers and management."
That's pretty much what I figured. Stock ownership (and thus a vote on the board) but not actually *worker-run* the way many smaller cooperatives like Full Sail function, which has divided the company up between several dozen employees who as far as I can figure out are more directly involved in decision-making.
And by the way, I really think that unions are far from moot at cooperatives that have an elected board and other decisions made by workers or members. There is still usually a big distinction between workers and the decision-making board.

A link to Winco's explanation.

http://www.wincofoods.com/about/an-employe…