Authors: Agustina Malvido and Katrin Martens
Date: 05.08.2026
Over the summer semester, forty students of the Master Course on Cooperation and Cooperatives stepped out of the lecture hall to meet co‑operative practitioners. Three visits to different organisations and a sector lecture allowed students to assess on their own how cooperatives function every day, including their challenges and complexities.
At SuperCoop Berlin eG, students learned how members’ labour contributions structure the day‑to‑day of a co‑operative supermarket, the difficulty of securing a new location, and how assemblies and working groups function across members of different cultures and languages. SuperCoop Berlin eG opened in September 2021 and was inspired on the Park Slope Food Coop in New York and La Louve in Paris, it counts roughly 2,000 members, who contribute about three hours of work per month and decide on assortment and policy under a one‑member‑one‑vote rule.
Bauerngarten showed how organic production is organised between technicians and members, and his owner spoke openly about its transition from a single‑owner firm to a co‑operative. It operates self‑harvest vegetable plots on farmland at three locations around Berlin, following the Viennese Gemüseselbsternte model: the farm pre‑plants circular parcels with some 25 organic crops, which members then tend and harvest over a season.
Genossenschaftsforum e.V. offered the rich history of housing co‑operatives in Berlin and Potsdam alongside their present‑day challenges in growing. Founded in the early 1990s by twelve Berlin housing co‑operatives and now comprising around 55 from Berlin and Potsdam, the non‑profit association promotes the co‑operative idea through publications, events and networking, and since 2021 runs the cooperativ Werkraum, a permanent exhibition and event space on the history of housing co‑operatives in the two cities.
The visits were complemented by a guest lecture from Benjamin Dannemann (DGRV) on co‑operatives in the German energy sector, extending the course’s reach across food retail, agriculture, housing and energy.
Asked about their impressions, here are some opinions from the students:
“Fascinating. Wonderful choice of cooperatives which broadened my understanding of cooperatives and the different forms they can take. Met the people involved with and in running them and and learned how they apply cooperative principles in practice and navigate the logistical and social landscapes of cooperative organisations.”
“I would say I got an overview of the complex dynamics that different types of cooperatives have. The actual environment of the field visits and the representatives themselves already gave a lot of information to help us understand some characteristics of the different organizations.”
“It was really nice to see the coops in a more practical sense after studying it in a more academic way, helps to comprehend more deeply the concepts we talked about.”
BICS thanks the organisations that opened their doors and the students who actively made this learning experience unique.
