Collingwood food lovers are uniting and recruiting for the Collingwood Community Food Co-op.

The organizers are holding a public meeting June 20 at 5:30 p.m. in the Theatre Collingwood Production Centre at the corner of Simcoe and St. Marie.

The meeting will offer information and will present estimated costs and business plans in an effort to recruit members.

"At this point when you become a member you own a co-op. Once we know the situation we have, we know how to structure it, and then we know how to cost it," said Fllo MacRae, acting chair of the Co-op.

At this point, the feasibility committee is putting together costs of having the co-op either a market or a restaurant. For MacRae, the importance is on supporting the production of local, organic food.

"We want to keep it as local as possible," said MacRae. "We want a friendly place to get food and get educated on good food."

So far public interest has been encouraging, with more than 200 people attending their first general meeting in April.

"There are people from the Collingwood Farmers Market who have been attending, and we would be interested in joining with them as well as (Community Shared Agriculture) businesses, and farms themselves," said MacRae.

MacRae was involved in starting the first Community Shared Agriculture business, and sees the Food Co-op as a way to expand the initiative to a larger group of producers.

"Not everyone can grow the types of food our consumers want. Why limit it to one or two producers?," she said.

MacRae says she hopes enough members will sign up at this meeting to get the co-op started. If not, they will continue to recruit members.

"We're looking forward to meeting everyone and to getting a co-op here."

hannah.vanderkooy@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @hannahvander