-By James Mellgren

Store Stats
Location: Carrboro, N.C.
Number of Stores: 3 plus a restaurant
Square Footage: From 6,800 to 9,200 in retail area
Number of Employees: 250
Web Site: www.weaverstreetmarket.coop

Throughout history, the marketplace has always been thought of as the heart of a community. The need for food, especially fresh foods before refrigeration, made markets the logical sites for meeting friends, catching up on news, conducting trade, or even fomenting revolution. Today, the choices for where to buy food are so vast — specialty shops, farmers' markets, supermarkets, big box stores, Internet, catalogs — that even in small communities there is rarely a central market that acts as the soul of a community anymore. Many strive for it but few actually achieve it. For the people of Carrboro, N.C., and its environs, they are lucky enough to have such a store in the Weaver Street Market, a store that is not only the heart of their community but is actually owned by the community as well.

A Community-Owned Business
Weaver Street Market opened in June 1988 as a community-owned or cooperative grocery store. The original investments came via a loan from the Self-Help Ventures Fund, a Community Development Block Grant from the town of Carrboro, as well as individual investors from the community who believed in the idea of a community-owned business. The store proved to be an instant hit and quickly transcended its role as a purveyor of quality food to become what the town had hoped for — a central market that truly reflects the soul of the community. They have done this in part by providing a lovely place to shop for top-quality foods, but also by the countless community events they either host or co-sponsor that have resulted in thousands of dollars of money donated each year to local schools and charities. Weaver Street Market offers back to the community more than donations, however, as they cull and select produce, cheese, meats, and other foods from many of the local farmers and artisans, giving the producers the opportunity to thrive at what they do and making their products accessible to the community.

Today, Weaver Street Market is the Southeast's largest cooperatively owned grocery store with over 10,000 consumer- and worker-owners. Their success led the cooperative to open a second business called Panzanella in 2000, a Mediterranean-style restaurant named for the thrifty and delicious Italian bread salad that typifies their approach to simple, great-tasting food. They also opened a second retail grocery outlet in a planned community called Southern Village in 2002, and are opening a third location in Hillsborough sometime this year. In addition, they have been able to expand the size of the original store five times since 1988 and are planning another expansion later this year.

Located near Chapel Hill, site of the University of North Carolina, and just west of the capital city of Raleigh, Carrboro is home to a very diverse customer base, including a large university and medical research facility at UNC-Chapel Hill.

A Community Effort
They say it's not uncommon for shoppers to see a farmer coming in the back door laden with fresh, just-picked produce to offer for sale in the market. Weaver Street has the area's largest selection of locally and organically grown produce, something everyone prizes as a "direct link to the local community." They seek out and buy many other locally produced goods as well, such as the artisanal pasta from Extrusions, a local pasta-maker, and premium cured meats from Giacomo's Italian Market who supplies them with Milano salami, pepperoni, Italian sausages, and soppressata. They also have formed relationships with local dairies who supply organic milk, cheeses and other dairy products. In addition to buying from local producers, Weaver Street also makes many of their own products such as the hearty and healthful breads they make throughout the day in their own bakery. They produce a variety of health breads made with natural leaveners and organic flour, as well as delicious yeast breads such as chewy rustic breads, baguettes, ciabatta, whole wheat, and dense multi-grain varieties. This homemade aspect of the market, combined with the many special products from local sources and from around the world, gives them a decided edge over their competition.

The staff at Weaver Street is good at listening to their customers (many of whom, of course, are owners as well as shoppers) and the product selection reflects that. For example, their customers are interested in products that are healthful for them as well as the environment, products that are locally grown and processed, and goods that meet various special dietary needs (i.e. all-natural, gluten-free, etc.). And while they are responsive to their customers' needs and to food that tastes good, they also make their selections based on values they have established as a co-op, that is to say quality products that are sustainably produced, artisanal, local, healthful, humanely raised, and that reflect fair trade practices. In keeping with their customers' desires, they carry many foods that are convenient, less-expensive choices, and foods that might be important to the local culture and tastes. Selections are made based on on-going dialogues with the community that take into consideration the market's buying ability, product and supplier attributes, and consumer requests.
Perhaps just as important as what they do carry is what they don't. For example, they have a policy against carrying certain products for societal or health reasons, such as tobacco products, meats produced with antibiotics or growth hormones, foods with harmful additives, and endangered seafood. Beginning just this year, Weaver Street Market will no longer carry foods with trans fats or high-fructose corn syrup.

Giving Back
Weaver Street Market, according to General Manager Ruffin Slater, maintains not one but three bottom lines: financial, environmental and social — all of which, he feels, need to be sustainable. We'll assume everyone focuses on the first one; and in terms of the second one, they are leading the way in finding ways to conduct business in the most environmentally friendly way, including exploring new avenues for green energy for their delivery trucks and facilities. They have also hired a Recycling Coordinator whose job is to find new ways to improve the recycling program. The final bottom line, the socially sustainable one, may be the one that connects them most to the community. The most direct outcome of this policy is that far more of the dollars spent at Weaver Street stay in the community as opposed to money spent at a chain store. Also, they find many creative ways to invest in the local, artisanal operations that are important to the product selection at Weaver Street and the health of the community, such as Growers Choice, a chicken-producing operation in nearby Chatham County.

Most important to many of the area's residents are the many events either sponsored or co-sponsored by Weaver Street Market throughout the year (in 2006, they hosted 247 community events, or about four per week). These events, many of which occur in the market itself, include "After Hours" (late spring through early fall), featuring live music, dancing and grilled food (the food is often sold by local nonprofits as fundraising); and "Jazz & More" on Sundays that attracts the brunch crowd for a leisurely morning on the lawn. Other events include farm tours co-sponsored by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, a Fourth of July costume parade, Halloween ghost stories and trick-or-treating, the annual volunteer fair, and art exhibitions.

In addition to being fun events for the townspeople, many of these events raise money for local charities and other worthwhile organizations. So when Weaver Street Market talks about having a healthy bottom line, they aren't just talking about money. Rather, they are infusing the entire community with their spirit and making everyone's lives a little better.

Merchandising Cooperatively
Weaver Street Market takes advantage of the fact that they are a cooperative in their merchandising. For example, they have a monthly promotional flyer called Cooperative Advantage Program that is organized by the National Cooperative Grocers Association. The program is a national buying program for co-ops that allows them to be price-competitive with other large conventional grocers. They also told me they routinely build end-cap displays (changed every two weeks) that feature sale items mixed with local and new and/or seasonal products that they want to support and promote. Merchandising at Weaver Street Market isn't just to increase sales but also to talk about many of the policies that make up their profile. They use branding posters and signage that promote products that they believe in because they are either high-quality, locally produced, fair traded, environmentally friendly, and so on. Their goal is not just to present a product but to tell the story behind that product or company. They also have weekly demos to showcase local vendors and new products, and of course, host many huge and fun events like the twice-annual Wine Shows that go a long way toward promoting sales and goodwill.

If You Feed Them, They Will Come
Weaver Street Market really epitomizes the spirit of a cooperative endeavor. On their Web site, they spell out their mission in terms that are quite unlike most businesses, but in a way that perhaps is reflective of the future of retail. They talk about being cooperative (keeping control and profits within the community and benefiting the community); the need to maximize local resources and support local producers; working in harmony with the ecology rather than exploiting it; putting the needs of the community ahead of profits; being accessible to the whole community, as well as the ideas of empowerment, interaction with the community; and playing a major role in educating the public about the foods they eat and the issues that affect everyone.

From what I have been able to ascertain, they have been very successful in all areas of their primary mission statement, while also maintaining a work environment that is both fiscally and physically sound. It also sounds like a very nice place to work as well as to shop. In all these regards, Weaver Street Market, like their Web site asserts, truly reflects their community in everything it does.

Comments? jmellgren@sbcglobal.net