Madison’s Nature’s Bakery Coop., a neighborhood fixture for 50 years, is dissolving, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. Its space at 1019 Williamson St. was purchased by a new tenant, DwellWerks LLC, for around $600,000.
The former bakery, a worker cooperative since the 1980s, stopped making its well-known bread in 2020 and has been offering only granola and vegetable burgers since. The dissolution of Nature’s Bakery Coop. ensures everyone with a stake in the bakery will receive their fair share of profits.
Difficulty meeting production requirements and getting people to join the cooperative, as well as supply chain issues, the rising cost of goods, the need for building updates, and other reasons were cited for the bakery’s dissolution. At the time of the closure, the bakery had only one worker-owner. Formerly, the bakery had as many as eight worker-owners producing goods for the community.
