Attendees at a crowded meeting, like Tambira Armmand (pictured), asked how the new co-op will reach out to the broader community.
With a new general manager fresh in from Utah, a planned downtown food co-op kicked off its membership drive, looking for 300 starter members to show banks that a community-owned grocery store is viable in New Haven.
The kick-off came at a public meeting Wednesday night to discuss the new Elm City Market, a food co-op planned for the first floor of 360 State, the big new mixed-use tower being completed downtown at the corner of Chapel and State Streets.
Developers originally planned to house a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods supermarket on the ground floor. After those plans fell through, developers decided to try a different tack—opening a grocery store owned by the community.
Thomas MacMillan Photo
It will cost $7 million, said Bruce Becker (pictured), whose company developed 360 State. Half of that money will come from the pension fund that’s been a main underwriter for the building. The rest would need to come from banks and individual investors. A group of institutional lenders has promised $1.3 million, but only if Elm City Market can build a base of at least 300 members.
That means at least 300 households willing to pay $200 (at once or on a payment plan) for a stake in the market. Members will have a role in store decisions and receive yearly dividends if the business turns a profit. Members can have their money refunded at any point if they decide to leave the co-op. Although anyone will be able to shop at the store, members may have access to special deals.
On Wednesday night in the Hall of Records on Orange Street a standing-room-only crowd of some 200 people turned out to learn those details about the new co-op. After helping themselves to pumpkin cookies and blue-corn chips, people peppered members of the market’s steering committee with questions about Elm City Market for over an hour. One theme that emerged: What will you be doing to ensure the co-op serves all parts of the city, not just yuppies and hipsters?
That’s something that the market will be working hard on, said Mark Regni (at right in photo below), the store’s brand new general manager.
Tagan Engel, Josh Brau, and Mark Regni (l to r)
With 30 years of experience in natural-foods grocery stores like Wild Oats and Whole Foods, Regni has been tapped to head up the food co-op, a first for him. He moved from Salt Lake City into an apartment in 360 State two months ago with his wife and 11-year-old daughter, a new student at Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School.
He’s stepping into an unusual situation, for a co-op starting up. Elm City Market is not following the traditional years-long grassroots process that normally births new co-ops. Instead of slowly organizing and building membership, then forming a board and finding a space and hiring a manager and creating a floor plan, Elm City Market is doing it the other way around.
Plans call for the co-op to open in March 2011 with 100 part- and full- time employees. Click here to view the floor plan. Click here to become a member.
The Answer Is You
In his opening remarks on Wednesday evening, Yale Associate Vice-President and Elm City Market incorporation board member Michael Morand (pictured) presented the co-op as the “next logical step” in New Haven’s “food renaissance,” the development of the city into a foodie destination.
Morand said Elm City Market has been looking closely at City Market in Burlington as a model.
A co-op has a number of advantages over a traditional grocery store, Morand said. Among them is local ownership instead of corporate ownership by a national or international company. That means money and choices stay local. “We don’t have to ask someone in Raleigh-Durham or the Netherlands for a decision to be made,” Morand said.
Business decisions — like choosing what products to stock — are made with input from members, who also elect the board of directors. “It’s very simple, there is not co-op without all of us,” Morand said.
After Morand’s presentation, the floor opened up to questions for general manager Regni, Yale MBA/Forestry student Josh Brau, and chef and New Haven Food Policy Council chair Tagan Engel, members of the market’s leadership group.
A man in the back raised his hand: What will the market do to make sure that the co-op is patronized by people of lower-incomes?
“That was my concern too,” Engel said. “Product placement is a really big deal in making the store feel accessible.”
The co-op aims to stock 70 percent natural and organic foods, she said. The co-op will be laid out so that basic staples and familiar products — corn flakes, for instance — occupy prime eye-level shelves, she said. Specialty products that one might find in a niche natural food store will be on lower or higher shelves. That’s so that people will feel familiar and at home in the store.
She said the store will also be designed so that it doesn’t feel too “precious.” It needs to be a store that all kinds of people can walk into and feel comfortable, she said. “That has been part of every discussion.”
Nate Daley raised his hand next. It’s great that corn flakes will be at eye level, he said, but how are you going to get people who aren’t in “I’m‑into-organic-foods-crowd” to come to the store?
“We’re not going to spend a bazillion dollars on sending out four-color flyers,” said Regni. The co-op has a website and will have some simple flyers available, plus a newsletter, he said. The market can also take advantage of monthly mailings put out by the National Cooperative Grocers Association (NCGA), he said.
Fine, but much of New Haven doesn’t have easy access to the internet, said Tambira Armmand (pictured at the top of this story). The co-op is going to need to “pound the pavement” and talk to community groups to get the word out, she said.
“Yes, I agree with that,” Engel said. The leadership group, which is open to anyone, will be working hard to send information out through all sorts of neighborhood organizations, she said.
Someone asked if the market will have a bakery and prepared foods. Yes, said Regni. It will be a “full service store” with meats, cheeses, frozen food, dairy, seafood, bulk food, and produce.
What about the effect on the Edge Of The Woods natural food store on Whalley Avenue? And what if a new grocery store opens in the Shaw’s plaza?
“New Haven can sustain all of these things,” replied Engel.
Will it be expensive to shop at Elm City Market?
The store is committed to reasonable prices, Regni said. It will meet that commitment partly by buying through the NCGA, he said.
The final question: What are the chances the co-op could fail, and not open at all?
“This is going to happen because we’re going to make it happen,” Morand said. “The answer is: You’re the answer.”
After the meeting, developer Becker acknowledged Elm City Market is charting a unique path. It’s unusual for a co-op to be picking up members after a board has been formed and a place secured, he said. It’s like adopting a child instead of going through the whole pregnancy, he said.
All the consultants who have advised the market so far have said, “This is really weird,” said Engel. “No co-op starts like this.”
“On the other hand, we have the benefit of a space and a layout,” she said. “Now we need to get the community involved.”
Judy Martz (pictured), who lives on Court Street, was one of the first to sign up for a membership. She said she’s looking forward to no longer living in a “food desert.”
With a grocery store downtown, she said, “it would be like living in a real city.”