Shared Harvest supporters want the city of Elgin to grant them $300,000 toward the $1.6 million it needs to convert this space on Spring Street downtown into its food co-op. Shared Harvest supporters want the city of Elgin to grant them $300,000 toward the $1.6 million it needs to convert this space on Spring Street downtown into its food co-op.
Organizers behind Shared Harvest the effort to start a food co-op in downtown Elgin say they still have to raise $1.3 of the $1.6 million they need to open and intend to ask the city for up to $500,000 in assistance.
Shared Harvest representative Heather Muniz said the group’s plan is to raise $800,000 through loans and vetted investors and another $800,000 from sales of shares in the business, community lenders and grants.
The real profit for owners is enrichment of their community through the co-op’s offerings, buying practices, educational programs and donations.”
Since March 2013, according to Muniz, the group has sold 914 shares at $100 per share to 616 households throughout the Elgin area, raising $91,400.
This March, Shared Harvest organizers took another approach, starting a campaign asking member/owners to make loans to the project.
“Through these loans, we have raised a total of $218,200 in the last 10 weeks,” Muniz said. The Shared Harvest board feels we have identified some of that gap people looking for more availability of natural and organic products, as well as the growing trend for interest in local foods.”
A market study conducted by Debbie Suassuna of the California-based G2G Group for the Elgin project in 2015 claimed the store could draw from “Elgin, South Elgin, southern Dundee, and northern Saint Charles” an area of about 178,000 residents.
“However, the trade area exhibits a demographic composition that is weaker-than-average with regard to most of the demographic variables that correlate positively with natural foods co-op sales performance levels (i.e., college-education levels, the proportion of non family households, and the proportion of persons employed in a health- or education-related occupation),” the study stated.
The study also noted that while there are no direct natural/organic food store competitors in the area in question, there are conventional stores that carry products similar to those found at a co-op.
Based on the 2015 study’s findings, Shared Harvest backers feel the Spring Street store could gross $2.7 million in sales its first year or about $7,400 a day.
The study also assumes “a level of store management that is knowledgeable and experienced (with at least five years of co-op store management experience), with a significant amount of market and marketing savvy.”
As the co-op would be locally owned, Muniz said, “The profits stay here and don’t go to Arkansas or California.”
Shared Harvest supporters also feel the store will be a source of economic development in the downtown with jobs and sales tax.
“Providing adaptive reuse of an empty building and supporting the retention of a current business, Shared Harvest meets many of the Elgin’s strategic initiatives such as enhancing neighborhoods, downtown, economic development, image, and diverse workforce,” Muniz said.
She added, “In addition, the co-op considers itself more than just a store, rather a community-based business that intends to focus on food education and community partnerships.
