Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Co-op grocery connects neighbors

Photos and story by James Hill

By Susan HerefordTalk of "building community"often can be empty rhetoric. Not so with a group of like-minded neighbors who wanted to buy high-quality food and produce at reasonable prices and support local, socially responsible farmers, producers and suppliers who use sustainable practices. Their vision, which started as a buyers club in 1997 with 25 or so families, has become a reality with the Alberta Cooperative Grocery. The cooperative now boasts close to 900 members and a 2,900-square-foot corner grocery store on N. E. Alberta Street. The store is in the heart of a friendly neighborhood that is fast becoming a bustling street of small shops, art galleries and businesses where once were abandoned storefronts. When the buying club cooperative made the leap to grocery store, the board of directors hired three managers. Bob New is in charge of finance and development and there is also an operations manager and a produce manager. The board then decided small business development training was an important ingredient for success. New and one of the board members researched possibilities and decided PCC’s Small Business Development Center provided the best approach."I was intrigued by Jackie’s (Babicky) class, plus the one-time-a-month counseling,"said New. Babicky works as a small business development instructor for PCC, providing both classroom instruction to a group of 15 or so small business owners and once a month on-site counseling visits. New said that the class and counseling have afforded a way to "take a step to the side and take a different view of our business."He is currently setting up systems for the grocery and writing down everything so that "if you go away, it will run without you."Babicky said of the grocery, "They are an organization committed to the cooperative system of working together with their neighbors and their city as well as with vendors and customers. They are combining good business practices with strong community involvement concepts."The buying club provided the seed capital from its member volunteers to open the store in 2001 with the membership raising 65 percent of the funding to buy equipment and inventory and lease the space. A start-up loan from the Portland Development Commission provided the rest of the needed $150,000. The loan is mostly paid off and in November 2003, the PDC provided another $66,000 infusion to help fund capital improvements. New is confident that the cooperative will be in the black in 2004. New said the biggest business challenge for the cooperative was to figure out the fixed expenses while working with more than 40 vendors from around the area and region. But with 8 percent growth in 2003, and annual revenues of $1 million, he believes they are poised for solid success in 2004. "In the long run,"said New, "we all have the vision to make this succeed."The annual membership fee is $36, which provides a 5 percent discount on all purchases, further discounts on case purchases and a major vote on the cooperative’s decisions, including election of the board of directors. Working volunteers can earn a store discount up to 15 percent."I consider us to be an anchor in the community,"New said. "The goal of the board was to provide a local place, a corner grocery, and to help make the community a little more livable. Everyone has a voice. As a cooperative, we help to do that."