Business

EARTH DAY: Co-Op celebrates year of success

Zack Stoker, the Co-Op's cheesemonger, offers a sample.

By Bill Moss, Published: April 22, 2016

One might not have thought that the Hendersonville Community Co-Op could just parachute into a well-to-do market and immediately prosper.

After all, eight Ingles stores and nine other supermarkets sell food in Henderson County — from discount retailers like Go to corporate giants like Walmart to high-end specialty stops like Fresh Market. That’s not counting a shiny new Publix and a new Ingles super store — both of which are less than a mile from the Co-Op. The co-op opened its new store a year ago on Spartanburg Highway at Grove Street, a guerrilla fighter in a food merchandising war zone that has managed not only to survive but to grow.
For the co-op, a member-owned enterprise, the decision to open a new store was a long time in coming. It was not made on the back of an envelope, nor precipitously. In fact, talk of expansion goes back years.
“Around 2008, when the economy had tanked, it may have slowed down the process a little bit but it didn’t stop it,” said Gretchen Cummins, the community outreach coordinator. “We had reached our maximum capacity and we wanted to grow but we needed to know what we were going to grow into.”
That gave birth to a multi-track plan to raise money, to identify shoppers and figure out what they wanted in a new store.
“Knowing that there would be other stores arriving — anything from Publix to Whole Foods, —we knew it was a matter of having our market share before they got here,” Cummings said. “So we did market studies. We looked at repairing old buildings and moving into old grocery stores and we also went into training to become fundraisers and to start selling preferred shares to accrue a bank of money so that we would look better to lenders.”
The co-op raised $843,500 by selling preferred shares, enough capital to buy land and borrow for construction.
“We looked at $1.2 million, thinking we were going to need that,” Cummins said of the capital plan. “But part way through the process this land became available and our broker said you could get that piece of land for X amount of money if you jump on it right now.”
The co-op jumped. The marketing study had shown that co-op shoppers were primarily from the central part of the county. To move far from its old location, on South Grove Street, was too risky.
“We also looked at the traffic flow here on Spartanburg Highway and we saw there was enough traffic to make it a desirable location,” Cummins said. By then, the co-op’s planners had already decided that renovating an old building would not be as environmentally sound as building a new energy-efficient facility. Although the building does not have LEED designation for green qualities, Cooper Construction worked with the co-op to make it as efficient as possible.
The new 8,000-square-foot store opened in February 2015 and had an official opening in April. It plans a one-year birthday celebration on Earth Day, which is Friday.

SUBHED
Sale up 47 percent

Despite a market with those 17 competitors, the co-op continues to grow its customer base, touting locally grown and produced food, fresh produce, organic options and a larger wellness aisle. Sales are up by 47 percent in 2015 over 2014. The store has 47 fulltime equivalent employees, up from 33 in January 2015. What might have seemed like a roll of the dice two years ago looks now like a safe bet.
“Upon opening we discovered that our parking lot was always full,” Cummins said. “We needed to park the staff elsewhere. It was really a good problem to have. We did notice that it was immediately a really busy place and we had a positive reaction, especially in the deli.”
“What we all kind of notice is that the deli is kind of a gateway drug for co-op shoppers,” she added. “Then often times the rest of the store sort of slowly unfolds to them.”
The new co-op offered an expanded menu of ready-to-eat sandwiches and wraps, soup, salad and hot food. It added inside and outside dining, and welcomes a diverse crowd ranging from construction crews to white-collar executives, young moms pushing strollers to elderly couples sampling the cheese specials.
“We added a cheese case with specialty items and added our meat department that is fresh and grown as sustainably as possible,” Cummins said. The co-op added a larger bulk food section, maintained its grocery and dairy aisles and added a cash register. One thing co-op shoppers notice is they seldom have to wait in line.
“We just wanted to join the modern age of efficiency while also offering the unique co-op experience that people have already enjoyed,” Cummins said.