8-3-2010
Walpole Developers Pitch Coop Grocery Plan
By Chuck Bingaman
Four Walpole businessmen acting as Avanru Development Group Ltd. pitched their idea for developing a cooperative grocery store on land they own off Rt. 12 to a public meeting of nearly 70 citizens at Fall Mountain High School Tuesday evening.
Backing them up and providing voices of experience were Terry Appleby, general manager, and Tony White of the Hanover Coop and Ed King, general manager of the year-old Littleton (NH) Coop.
Walpole ringleader Jack Franks said he had been thinking about improved grocery possibilities for several years since he served on the board of the Village School and commiserated with other young families about Walpole’s limited grocery choices and prices. “There was a recurring theme about what choices we had here and, especially, what we didn’t have!” according to Franks.
Franks added that, “in thinking about developing the site on Rt. 12, I discussed possibilities with Hannaford's, Price Chopper, Trader Joe’s and others. While there was some interest, it just didn’t seem to me to be a good fit." Then I learned about the grocery coop being developed in Keene, and we visited the coops in Hanover and Littleton, and we liked the idea of keeping our own money in our own town.”
The developers also liked the idea of having a coop owned and run by local people—members of the coop itself and a local board of directors—that would determine what the store sold, how it would relate to local producers, and how any profits would be used.
Hanover’s Appleby defined a coop as “an autonomous association of people voluntarily joined and democratically run.” And he noted that Hanover’s coop is now 75 years old and was founded by a group that wanted to get fresh fruit in the winter. Last year the Hanover coop, now with four locations, had $65 million in sales, including $8 million in “locally sourced” products, over half of which was locally grown agricultural products.
Appleby and White also explained how, over the years, the coop has worked with area farmers to help them coordinate what they grow in order that the farmers would have guaranteed markets for their crops and so that additional crops might be grown and offered to coop members. They also gave examples where farmers, given the opportunity to have flexible give and take with a sizable grocery outlet, have created additional food products made possible by working out sustainable pricing arrangements.
Appleby and White also noted that, to make it possible to have some locally grown crops in Northern New England, it does take higher prices than some other stores can charge to import those crops. But, they said, their members have understood that concept and supported it with their food dollars.
While noting that no plans are set yet, Franks said his group was thinking at this point of a 25-30,000 square foot store, even larger that the current Shaw’s Supermarket.
Kasper added that cooperative grocery stores usually emphasize food education for customers that really want to know about their food and that their plans call for a 3,000 square foot green house area where children’s food growing programs could be housed and encouraged. He added that coops tend to offer more full-time, good paying jobs with benefits to provide the knowledgeable services that coop members expect.
The developers hope that community leaders will step up at this stage to indicate interest in pursuing the cooperative idea, to participate in necessary feasibility studies, and to participate in the process of organizing the legal structure, raising seed money and attracting coop members. Referring to the other part of the proposed development, Franks said “the whole condo thing was secondary to putting in a grocery store that worked for Walpole. That’s what got this all started!”
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