GREENFIELD — Real Pickles, a worker-owned cooperative specializing in organic, fermented foods, has bought the 311 Wells St. building it has called home since 2009.

The local company bought the property from business founders Dan Rosenberg and Addie Rose Holland for $550,000 on Nov. 20 and now serves as the landlord to fellow worker-owned cooperative PV Squared, a solar design and installation company.

“It feels awesome,” said Kate Hunter, the sales and marketing manager at Real Pickles. “It’s really in line with our values and our mission. It’s such a beautiful example of how worker-owned cooperatives can really preserve the values and missions that a business is built on.

“This is really part of Dan’s vision for Real Pickles, and keeping it strong in this community and strengthening the co-op values in the area,” she continued. “It’s something we’ve wanted to do since the beginning, but it really is strengthening and deepening our roots in the community.”

Worker-owned cooperatives are owned and democratically controlled by their employees, giving workers a direct stake in the success of the business. This model not only supports fair wages and shared decision-making but also fosters long-term community stability.

Rosenberg, who lives in Montague, first envisioned Real Pickles in 1999 after taking a workshop on lactic acid fermentation at the Northeast Organic Farming Association’s (NOFA) summer conference at Hampshire College in Amherst. That workshop was made up of practitioners and students engaged in organic farming and homesteading.

Real Pickles came to fruition two year later, when Rosenberg and Holland moved to western Massachusetts. The company’s name is derived from its use of lactic acid fermentation, the original pickling method before it became more common to use vinegar. Lactic acid fermentation creates a sour flavor and acts as a preservative.

Real Pickles started operating out of the Franklin County Community Development Corporation’s incubator kitchen before moving across the street to 311 Wells St. in 2009. It transitioned into a worker-owned cooperative in 2013 and Rosenberg handed over the general manager reins to Kristin Howard about a year ago, working on a part-time basis to provide support when needed.

“They’re doing their thing without me and they’re doing wonderfully, which is fantastic to see,” Rosenberg said.

He called the change of building ownership “a really important milestone” that reinforces “the democratic structure of the worker cooperative.”

Howard said the business slowly worked its way toward landlord status.

“When the co-op first bought Real Pickles, we didn’t really have the resources to buy the building as well,” she explained. “It was kind of a deliberate plan to sort of pace it out and make sure we were setting ourselves up for success.”

Kate Carter, a member of the PV Squared management team, said she is thrilled the solar design and installation company’s landlord is a fellow worker-owned co-op.

“There’s something really special about watching another worker-owned cooperative take such a tremendous step forward in their own business,” she said. “And so, I think for me, it just is a bunch of sort of co-op pride.

“I think we have an opportunity to collectively imagine how we might work together a little bit differently — maybe there’s ways to share the building space differently,” she added, “or ways where we might informally catch up more than we would otherwise and learn from each other.”

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.