Digital Commons Network^™

Building Store Patronage By Strengthening Community Relationships, Kolia Souza, Rial Carver

Center for Engagement and Community Development

Grocery stores are anchor institutions in the community. Two main questions of this presentation are: How is the local grocery store integrated into the community, and what difference does it make if the local grocery store is connected to the life of the community? Patronage indicators, social capital indicators, and demographic indicators are used in the analysis of two South Central stores and 2 Southeast stores through interviews with store leadership, store intercept surveys, and mailer surveys. This analysis found that grocery store social capital best practices include capitalizing on community assets and leveraging social networks; moving higher on the …

Farm To Rural Grocery To Wholesale: Backhauling Through Existing Infrastructure To Create Local Food Access, Ren Olive, Les Olsen, Kathy Draeger, Duke Harrison, Hikaru Peterson, Bonnie Carlson

Center for Engagement and Community Development

The University of Minnesota Extension’s Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships (RSDP) is leading an integrated research and extension project that involves stakeholders from across the food supply chain, including producers, rural grocers, wholesalers, regulators, and University of Minnesota research and Extension.

The presentation panel provides background on our progress of piloting and developing the feasibility of a new model, Farm to Rural Grocery to Wholesale (F2G2W). This model leverages the existing network of rural grocery stores and their wholesale suppliers to “backhaul” locally grown produce on emptied wholesale trucks for redistribution through wholesale markets. Backhaul, in this context, is the practice …

Mobile Grocery Stores For Rural Communities, Becky Reid, Kerri Falletti, Kelly Hull, Deb Firebaugh

Center for Engagement and Community Development

On January 19, 2018, Cowley County was contacted by a representative from Sunflower Foundation with an amazing opportunity. The funder had been in contact with Honor Capital, LLC, a veteran-owned private equity firm with the mission to build and operate grocery stores in underserved areas.

While much of their work has been in urban settings, Honor Capital, LLC has a desire to tackle the very unique challenge of RURAL food deserts. They recently received funding from out of state to pilot the concept of a mobile grocery truck in rural Kansas. They wish to use the recently built Save-a-Lot store …

Re-Establishing Food Retail In St. John, Kansas, Carolyn Dunn, Jordan White, Pat White

Center for Engagement and Community Development

Presenters lead a session that highlights a case study on developing a new grocery facility in a town of 1200 people. They describe what it took and the lessons learned, such as defining the size of the market; feasibility; and compensating when the market isn’t big enough to justify the investment they want from a public policy/town survival viewpoint. Some perspectives gained during the experience include conducting a market study; the value of a Citizen Committee; the real issue of population decline and job creation; how other businesses can be incorporated into the store (such as fuel, laundromat, liquor store, …

Panel: Stifling Efforts To Build Local Food Systems: How Preemption Can Impact Your Community’S Access To Healthy Food, Mary Marrow, Missty Lechner, Natasha Frost, Ashley Jones-Wisner

Center for Engagement and Community Development

Local and regional food systems are impacted by a wide range of local and state laws and policies that can support or impede community efforts to enhance local and regional food production, food distribution, food retail and grocery store outlets, and other food security issues. This session examines different state and local policy and legal mechanisms that impact the local food system, including the use of state preemption to stifle local policy initiatives, local policy tools available to enhance local food systems, and emerging local advocacy efforts in the Midwest to support sustainable and resilient community food systems.

Preemption occurs …