I learned last year, possibly here, that the reason you can make withdrawals from your credit union at virtually any other credit union’s ATM isn’t because of some cabal of credit unions so much as the fact they nearly all use the same vendor.

I don’t know if there’s a lesson here for grocers, or maybe Organic Valley (a farmer cooperative) is a closer model.

If you are not clear on what your secret sauce is, or what your competitors think theirs is, it’s hard to be open about commodifying things that aren’t critical to you but are to your customers. Shared logistics systems? Probably trade secrets there. Other things? Maybe not so much.