From Then to Now

When Wandering Cooks said goodbye in May 2022, many of us felt the loss in our soul. It wasn't just a business —it was our family. We believed we were growing something better, together.

We all got on with things in the quiet that followed Cooks closure. New work, new loves, new lives… but we didn’t forget the magic, or want it less.

For me, Ange, founder of Cooks, I wanted the magic back, but without the ‘boss’ and all the singular stress and responsibility that title piles onto one lonely human’s shoulders. I’ve spent the last few years working in a great organisation. With 100+ people and many managers, it’s helped me remember what having a boss feels like, and why, in my early thirties, I decided I wouldn’t have one anymore, which led to me starting Cooks. Becoming the boss.

Now, I want bosslessness.

I started wondering, what if we could resurrect the magic… the producers wandering in every day and gathering around food, the rejection of the heartless, the corporatised, the industrialised. What if we could resurrect all this but reformed into something owned by everyone?

That question bubbled away while 3 households, all ex-Cookers, started gathering food together. We never have all the answers without the mistakes that proceed them. And we’re learning to talk very frankly with each other, with curiosity for what might challenge our opinions. Then, we invited more households into the fold.

For a year, we’ve experimented with what an increasing collective abundance might surface in our search for shared magic. We’ve grown systems and a list of 500+ products. We’ve added all manner of edible to the list (we get very excited!!) and then take them away when we learn more from our hive mind, reshaping what is good food, accessibility, affordability… magic.

Every month, we gather together to shop, with working members weighing up bulk purchases of flour, grains, nuts, oils — all manner of them. Then we reflect together and improve. We’re constantly reworking our system for divvying up a whole cow. We share snacks, hold babies and help each other to the car with mountains of food. We’re discovering that the work itself—the ordering, weighing, debating and baby minding—weaves us together. The "inconvenience" of participation rather than the soulless ease of a supermarket turns out to be the source of our collective abundance.

Most recently we’ve added a weekly pre-packed grocery box to our offerings, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables.

And now, we're opening our doors just a little wider, with an invitation to more households. Not to faceless consumers, but to kindred spirits, who share our longing for the magic and want to weave us with it.

We're called Cooks' Co-op, for now. It’s a nod to our origins, with a new commitment to ‘us’. If you've been looking for a different way to feed yourself and your loved ones—one that connects rather than isolates, that builds rather than extracts—you just may have found your people.

We only have room for 5 new member-households every month. We’ll keep a waiting list after we fill these places.

Want to see our current list?

What to stay in touch on Instagram?

Interested in becoming a member? Email us at [email protected].