Our History

In 1976, Honest Weight was founded by a group of friends to improve access to healthy and responsible foods. Forty-four years later, we're operating the same way. Our friend group has just grown a bit.

Honest Weight Food Co-op began in January of 1976 as a bulk buying club, started by a group of about 20 friends and neighbors who wanted access to then-unusual ingredients like whole wheat flour. By pooling funds, they were able to increase their buying power and split 50-pound bags of dried goods. The club operated out of Sharon and Gary Goldberg’s basement. Its member-owners took turns collecting, collating, and processing monthly member orders. It was the first buying club in Albany, making healthy, nutritious foods accessible to all of its member-owners. The group called themselves The Honest Weight (No Springs) Food Cooperative, borrowed from the slogan of the Toledo Scale Company.

Orders grew so quickly in that first year that Honest Weight’s member-owners decided to open their first storefront on Quail Street and to reorganize from a private buying club to a food cooperative open to the public. Now all of that healthy, nutritious food was available to the entire Capital District!

By 1995, the Quail Street location was bursting at its seams and our member-owners approved the move to a larger store on on Central Avenue. This store served us well, but with a growing roster of member-owners and an increasing number of non-member customers shopping our ever expanding selection of wholesome natural foods, great cheeses, and specialty foods, as well as health and beauty products, we once again outgrew our building.

 This time the member-owners decided to build a brand new store and now Honest Weight Food Co-op is located at 100 Watervliet Avenue in the city of Albany. In keeping with our mission, the building was constructed with an emphasis on environmental sustainability.  It opened on June 19th, 2013, and features improved parking (with a porous parking lot) and expanded amenities, including a teaching kitchen for cooking classes, and a multi-use community room.