Wild Onion's — and Mary Meyer's — Moment
Chicago co-op's Wednesday opening completes long journey for Owner #1
According to an ancient saying, good things come to those who wait. This certainly appears to be true for Mary Meyer — a founder and owner #1 of what became the Wild Onion Market food co-op project — whose journey to the ribbon cutting scheduled for 12 p.m. Wednesday (June 12) in Chicago’s Rogers Park community has been long and often challenging.
Mary was among a group of 30 Rogers Park residents who met in 2012 to discuss the possibility of creating a co-op that would empower community members and provide them with greater access to healthy, sustainably produced and in many cases local products.
Typical of co-op markets, which raise much of their start-up capital in small increments from individual share owners, it took 12 years for Wild Onion Market (originally known as Rogers Park Food Coop) to come to fruition. “I've been there from day one till now on the board, all the time engaged. I never really took a break,” Mary said on Friday (June 7) as I chatted with her at the store, located at 7007 N. Clark St.
I asked if her primary emotion was relief. But her answer was firmly focused on the present and the future of the market. “I'm very excited as things are coming together, in a good way,” Mary said. She noted that the staff under recently hired General Manager Teresa Meza is in place and the point-of-sale system is up and running. “We’ll be ready for Wednesday.”
After a long dry spell for food co-op openings in the Chicago region, Wild Onion is the second in a flurry of four such stores. FOODshed, located in Woodstock, a Chicago exurb, opened on May 15. The openings of Prairie Food Co-op in suburban Lombard and Chicago Market in the city’s Uptown neighborhood are months away.
At the FOODshed opening, a founder got laughs when he held up the project’s first brochure, from 2012, that anticipated a 2013 opening, a plan that turned out to be off by 11 years. But Mary — whose career was in financial planning and investments — said her group had gotten advice from experienced co-op hands and were prepared for the long haul.
“I understood the financials, what it's going to take, how many owners, getting commercial loans and all of that money getting tighter as time went on...,” Mary said. “We've had help breaking it down into manageable steps, having milestones. You do this when they reach this number, you make this decision. This is when you start your capital campaign. We were always very open to getting trained and following the best practices, we were never afraid to reach out and ask questions.”
Now, a new challenge settles in after the ribbon is cut on Wednesday.
“We have to continue working, even after the store is open, to grow our shopper base, to satisfy our customers,” she said. "We have three constituencies. We have our producers, we have our owners, and we have our staff, and all three have to really work well together for this to be hugely successful.”
This being Local Food Forum, I inquired as to whether shoppers can expect to find locally sourced products in the store. Mary reached for a printout list of local suppliers, most of them familiar names within our community, but noted that local sourcing is “a work in progress.” Some local brands that are already on shelves are represented in photos in this article.
The store is open to all customers, but share owners have a say in how the store is run. Here’s how the store describes the benefits of ownership:
You will be able to vote in the Co-op's Annual Election where a Board of Directors is selected by owners and other important matters are brought for a vote.
You’ll help build a vibrant store, where you can make suggestions about what you want to see stocked.
In profitable years, the co-op can pay dividends to owners.
Wild Onion will continue to invite new owners after the store opens. Lifetime ownership shares are $250 per household. Click below for more information.
Mary noted that Wednesday’s ceremony is not the Grand Opening celebration, which will take place on Saturday, July 27. This kind of soft opening will enable the store to test its systems, ensure that staff is fully up to speed, and address any problems before throwing the big party. (The FOODshed Co-op took a similar approach, with a month between the store’s launch and the Grand Opening celebration that takes place this Saturday, June 15.)
These co-ops are welcome additions to our local food ecosystem, and Local Food Forum wishes them the best of luck.
Click below for the details and a link to register.
Donation Gardens Grow to Help Food Pantries
The latest contribution from University of Illinois Extension and UI Health is right on topic as we prepare for our next webinar, highlighted above. It is all about sharing the bounty of gardens with local food pantries. Expanding access to healthy and sustainably produced food is a major topic on Local Food Forum, and these kinds of donations help expand the palette of pantries.
As the post below suggests, make sure to contact the pantry to which you'd like to donate to make sure they are in a position to handle it. Many pantries have limited storage capacity for fresh food items.
This feature is provided as part of UI Extension's Eat.Move.Save program. Thanks as also to Bianca Bautista of UI Extension Cook County for the contributed content.
