The purpose of this guide is to provide volunteer board members of new or expanding food cooperatives with an accessible tool they can use to better understand their market potential. A market study is a pivotal piece of information necessary to obtain project financing. Even more important, a good market study will help a cooperative or organizing committee decide whether it is even feasible [...]
By Bill Gessner, Patricia Cumbie 121 November - December - 2005 Every expansion is unique in some respect, but the universal truth is that building a larger facility includes taking on a bigger role in the community. More and more food co-ops are remodeling, relocating, building additional locations, hiring more staff, and adding more products and services. Meanwhile, many of them face formidable competition [...]
By Bill Gessner 099 March - April - 2002 You have successfully navigated the stormy waters of a relocation/expansion project. Your co-op has proudly opened the new store amidst celebration, praise, relief, adrenaline and exhaustion. At this common juncture, I have had the privilege of being able to offer a number of co-ops a bit of needed but unwelcome advice: Now the real work [...]
By Jeanie Wells, Nancy O'Connor 096 September - October - 2001 When you last read about Community Mercantile Co-op in Lawrence, Kansas, we had just barely survived Wild Oats coming to town. The article in the May-June 1997 edition of Cooperative Grocer chronicles our struggle ending with the closure of Wild Oats. After being profitable for only the past few years, how did we [...]
By Bill Gessner 033 March - April - 1991 Losing Market Share? Many of today's retail food cooperatives now have a history of ten to twenty years. Meanwhile, the natural foods industry and the natural foods market that co-ops helped developed has grown dramatically. In many regions of the country, the coops have lost a large share of the natural foods market to privately [...]
