ABSTRACT
Rural grocery stores across the United States face daunting challenges, a shrinking customer base, a lack of capital, a lack of available labor, and narrow profit margins. These challenges and aging rural grocery operators are causing small town grocery stores to close or transition their businesses. Because of the challenging competitive grocery environment facing rural communities, it is increasingly difficult to find sole proprietors or regional grocery chains to invest in these small businesses. Consequently, grocery owners and community leaders are increasingly exploring and pursuing community-supported models of grocery ownership. This chapter examines how a rural town in southeast Kansas established a community-supported grocery store via a city-owned grocery business model. The chapter describes the community’s process of organizing and funding its city-owned grocery store and details how this version of a community-supported enterprise (CSE) both intersects with and differs from other forms of CSEs.
