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In 1973 there was a food buying club called "The Lexington Food Co-op". They did about seven orders with Twin Oaks Community of Louisa, getting food from Mottel in New York City. Then it died even though they got rolled oats for just ten cents a pound. Its members included North Mountain Community and two houses of W&L students called Chaos West and Buffalo Creek Country Club. Jim Darragh, Sean Reilly and some of the North Mountainers were involved then and in the Co-op's next incarnation. The present Co-op started in April 1976 with the name of "The Rockbridge County Food Co-op" and made its first order May 9, 1976. It was a buying club that put together orders at monthly dinners or picnics held at members' homes in rotation. Among the members were Peter O'shaunessy, Karin Alberti, Mollie Messimer, Kevin Donovan, Chris Wise and Heart of the Forest. The first supplier was Laurelbrook Foods of Tennessee and soon, Mountain Warehouse of Roanoke. Jim Paxton was supplying honey by August 1977. There was a small unrelated health foods store on West Nelson Street that began about the same time. It was owned by Pat Perrin of Loblolly Farm and later by Zooey Dackman, and went out of business sometime in 1980. Apparently the Food Co-op operated for its first eight months without even having a checking account. As a buying club, it had a lot of energy and served well, but it was difficult on a practical level with ad-hoc task assignments and no fixed address. Part of the membership proposed that having a store front would be not much harder, would attract new people to natural foods and might earn a little profit for expansion. Jane Merrill says there was also "fierce opposition" to the idea. Hans and Amenie Schweitzer from Annapolis bought the Deaver' s Alley Building, and with friends started several businesses in it. Some remember the start of the Co-op's store front as happening in 1977, but paper records show that on September 1, 1978 the Food Co-op began selling food in a room it had rented on the south side of the building for one hundred dollars per month. There were no other expenses; no phone, no salary, not even a stipend in food. The word "County" was dropped from the name. The first manager was Suzie Turner --- she was unflappable. Some of the other members' were Wynifred Holt, John McLeod, the Schweitzers, Penny Newhall, Jo Ellen Parent, Eli Fishpaw, Shirley Hughes and Mollie Pelliciarro. There was a signup sheet for members to come in and open the store for its two or three afternoons a week. It ran like a buying club that accumulated the leftovers from bulk bags which the members had ordered. At first, most of the food was sold on a pre-order pre-pay basis and retail sales were minor. After each delivery, the dividing crew would spend a long evening separating out ten to twenty orders on a large unplaned wooden table. The Co-op bought a deli display case for $35 from the Denmark Country Store, then collected a borrowed scale, a bunch of five gallon buckets, some folding chairs and a small calculator. That's all that was needed. An annual fee of ten dollars per family was assessed, and a few members made loans in the range of one or two hundred dollars. Without a bank loan or even a capital plan, it was done entirely on a shoestring basis. The 1979 city business license says that the previous year's sales were $6,071.88 or a bit more than two weeks' sales in 1993. After about a year in that room, Hans Schweitzer offered a larger room at the front of the building. Diana Silvea took over from Suzie Turner. Packaged foods and Dutch Yoghurt were sold. The idea evolved that cheap food in bulk for members and operation of the store itself could be supported by selling packaged food (even snack food) at higher mark-ups to non-members. This did cause some hurt feelings. The Co-op got a phone, struggled endlessly with bookkeeping and cash flow, and tried to get systematic about ordering and labor. The manager was part time and was paid fifty dollars per week. The meetings were lively, the store sold homemade sausage, the mark-up was 40% and discounts of up to 35% were available to workers. The heroic bookkeepers were Amenie Schweitzer, David Ashworth and Edith Reese. Even though the store required as much work then as it does now, and even though about once a month its existence seemed precarious, the workers and the Board of Directors had learned a lot, sales were increasing and it started to actually look like a real store. Then in June of 1981 ---- a bombshell. The manager announced that she had personally signed a lease with the landlord for the store's space, that she would improve equipment and inventory, and hoped to offer discounts to workers. The store would be hers and not a co-op ---- in forty-five days! The membership was shocked and angry ---- so with that impetus and the knowledge that they had already built a store from scratch once, they moved the store to 11 South Randolph Street. The re-opening was August 1, 1981. It was a larger space in the cellar of an old stone house that had once been the county's children's health clinic. Mrs. Silvea even tried to keep the Co-op's name but settled on "Rockbridge Foods". She had a natural ability with customer service, a better location that the customers were used to, regular hours and a larger inventory, but most of the members moved with the store. The Co-op made Jo Ellen Parent the new manager and nobody spoke to Diana. How could either store survive in a town much smaller than many with no health food stores? Abruptly, just short of two years later, Diana closed up and moved away. Mirabai McLeod became co-manager with Jo Ellen and they both burned out after a year, John Swann from Colorado, Fred Baker from Mountain Warehouse, then Mirabai again each managed the store for about a year. The worst headache was staffing --- even more than money. Each week the schedule changed. The store still could not open on Thursdays or Saturdays. The manager (still part time) had to come in and fill blank slots, and still fairly often the store could be found closed during business hours if a volunteer forgot. The solution to this was the day manager system in which a member would commit to running the store on a certain day of the week, every week. The volunteers were then supplemental workers and didn't have to learn how to run the store. Turnover of staff and managers slowed quite a bit. Sandy Martis became co-manager with Mirabai. The day managers kept in touch through a diary which still exists. The mundane tasks were the same then as now; bagging, cleaning, favors to customers, out-of-stock, bagging, nursing the equipment, bagging. Some things were different and occasionally light up the notes: The time a day's receipts disappeared and were found to have been dropped off at the wrong bank. Times when heavy rains leaked (ran) through the foundation and the clerk opened to find half an inch of water on the floor. Exclamations over good sales and what may be the Co-op's worst ever day - - - a Saturday when the clerk herself spent $1.60 and the only other sale was for 70¢ (25¢ of which was borrowed from the clerk). Money was then the major problem. Even with sales as much as $200 on a busy Friday, the store was losing money. The only profits came from benefits such as the August Street Festival Booth, a pancake breakfast each spring, and the Buena Vista Mountain Music Festival. Those two hundred dollar days felt crowded and hectic, being on a back street we had very little exposure to new customers, and rumor had it that the Bank (the store's landlord) wanted to tear the building down. To survive the Co-op had to break out --- to become a real store accessible and appealing to the larger community instead of just to the committed core group: How to afford it? The Fairshare Plan tied membership and discounts to investment in the Co-op. Other co-ops had used it and it worked here too. How to stop losing money? The board called in a professional consultant on co-ops who said that by his projections the store would be in ruins in six weeks! And that no co-op could exist on sales as low (or on discounts as high) as he found here. Also it was necessary to come out of legal limbo; to incorporate, pay income tax, Social Security and Workman's Compensation. The Board was shaken to hear it, even considering the distance between his expertise and its own expertise in getting by on a shoestring. Discounts were cut, although less than he suggested. So with one plan for capital, another to stop losses, becoming legitimate, finding a new location twice the size, equipping it, then making the move - - - the summer of 1987 was very busy. The re-opening was November 1, 1987 at 110 West Washington Street, and when it was done, Mirabai left and Sandy became the sole manager. In March 1989, Mark Mullinax became the first full time manager, also the first one paid anything like a real wage. In the fall of 1989 the name on the sign in front changed to "Healthy Foods Market" and the store gave selling beer and wine a two-year trial. Organic produce was more popular, first from commercial suppliers then also from local gardeners in season. The local gardeners efforts were organized by Katherine Smith, Mel Leasure and Lois Brown. In March of 1992 Mark wanted to travel, and the Co-op's current manager, Stevie Bond, was hired after advertising outside of the membership for the first time.
As the Rockbridge Food Co-op has evolved from a funky volunteer club to a professionally managed store, we hope we are combining the fun and involvement of the old days with much better service.
Fo-od Co-op Highlights from 1993 to 1998 The major change from 1993 to 1998 is that the store has become much more like a regular business. Stable management, greater sales, semi- realistic wages, paid clerks replacing the volunteers, a vigorous Finance Committee, and taking over the food service. It has become a much busier and more complete store still in the same space.
1993 family members = 93 1998 family members = (around 350) Tom Osella took over from Stevie Bond as manager in December of 1993, and he has done it since. He might be the only manager we ever had who lasted more than two years. Helene Edward ran Sprouts Deli until June of 1994. Then Laurie Macrae expanded it into The Blue Heron Cafe which she ran until September 1997. The Blue Heron graduated to its own restaurant space and we began to run the Juice Bar ourselves, with Barbara Burns then Hans Hitesman as managers. Produce became a focus for the store, not just in the dedicated local gardeners (The Organic Growers) but year round ordering or commercial produce. In 1998 we bought a second produce display case - the first new equipment for us. |
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