My wife and I have been feeling very compelled to make some changes in our local community. We realize that change begins at a local level, and grows from there, and we want to be a part of that change.
What do we want to change?
We want to change the way people think, eat, shop, spend.. we want people to stop filling themselves with toxic foods that make them feel horrible day in and day out. Many people don’t realize it, but they are slaves to their diet. You are what you eat! If you eat a lot of processed foods, you may find yourself feeling terrible quite often - physically, mentally, and even spiritually.
We live in an area with a lot of farms - growing all kinds of products. Problem is, you have to wait for a farmers market or go to each farm individually. So what about a store where you can find all your local farms products, that will stay stocked - even during a supply chain crisis. Nothing made in China on the shelves. All local goods that you can trace back to the very farm they came from. Meat, seafood (from the Chesapeake Bay), veggies, dairy - all the outside isle goods. This store isn’t where you’ll find a bag of Doritos or Honey Nut Cheerios.
Wondering if anyone on this board has experience with this? We realize it’s not an original idea, but we are serious about it. We also have plans to invest in a plot nearby for a community garden, which is just something that we can give back to the community with. Will also offer opportunities to have workshops and field trips, teaching our locals about cultivating good that are good for our local ecology.
We see the times we are in as an opportunity. People have never been paying attention as much as they are now. It’s a great time to educate and start planting new ideas in people’s heads. Obviously, with our corporate grocery stores shelves empty (I mean seriously empty here), this is the time to introduce an alternative idea. Yes, you will pay more - but you will be supporting your local economy and that really means something.
Please, I would love to have some discussions with you all!
You would be much better off reviving the concept of a general store.
General stores would often take orders similar to modern supermarkets do pick ups and online orders. Depending on the type of general store some of them would office space or sell space to farmers and other such sellers.
It was a lot smaller than a supermarket but they would often have a much more friendly feel to them and often would be a community ground where people would meet and talk and get food. Sort of like the food area in Costco but with better food and people actually like being there.
The interpersonal relationships developed at the general stores are the thing that are really important to be brought back especially in a modern world where people feel disconnected.
From a financial perspective there is a significant gain to be made by the reduction of stock loss via theft (especially around self service checkouts). Not to mention more stock on a more regular basis.
The general store was a great concept that was destroyed by the idea of labour and the destruction of labour costs.
Your ideal leads to revival of this. However you can’t probably just bring back the 1900s version but they would be a modern equivalent that could be probably a lot better. The next revolution in supermarkets is the removal of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_store
I agree! I have a local hardware store where the owner and I know each others names. In fact, he knows the names of most people who come in. He can tell you the exact location of every item on his shelf on demand. The cost is a little extra, but the thought of supporting a neighbor is worth it.
I always told my wife that I would gladly quit my career for a job like that, if I was able to actually support my family that way. That is the biggest challenge - being able to hold up my house while bringing a commodity to the community. I don’t care to be rich - just happy.
So these business are economies of scale so to make a lot of money you need to sell a lot however the average profit per year is around 60K -300k
I think you could easily start a community store.
There is a significant benefit to the farmers financially as like everyone in this world they get screwed over by the large organisations such as supermarkets. The margins that they get from the supermarket can actually quite slim (I have seen some deals that are closer to slave wages than real wages) Depending on the deal there is a chance your local store would be able to offer them 20 to 40% additional profits than that of what they would get if they sold to a supermarket.
The reason you would be able to offer a significant cost improvement for the farmers is because you could charge more than the regular supermarket you also don’t have the significance overheads or would have the significant amount of stock lost the supermarkets have due to the self check out some other thievery.
It is very doable to turn it into a profitable business that would work very well you just need a vision in detail and an understanding of what you would be doing differently to a current supermarkets. I’d advise you to go see every kind of farmers market supermarket possible and get some ideas on what you would do different.
The current way supermarkets operate are awful and so I think there is definitely room for a revival of an old style approach or even better a revolution in this space. In the space of 100 years we went from loving our trips to the local grocery markets and supermarkets and food markets to hating them with a passion I can’t think of anybody who enjoys the trip to the supermarket.
I mean your local hardware store is a good example of this I’m sure you much prefer to shop at your local hardware store than in your big box hardware store like Lowes.
This is why there is a significant revival in these little weird sort of organic stores there sort of the antidote to supermarkets.
Anyway the point I’m trying to make his you have a great idea keep going with it don’t let it die. The world needs revolution in this space desperately please be the person to make that happen.