Helping smaller cities keep their grocery stores.
That’s one of the objectives of a rural initiative to serve north central North Dakota.
Ellen Huber is the rural development director for the North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives. She said the Bush Foundation is granting the effort $12.6 million over the next seven years for this project.
"The objective is to strengthen purchasing power for independent grocers through cooperative purchasing, to reduce wholesale costs, and improve their ability to compete with corporate giants," Huber told reporters. "This grant funding will support research, business planning and project coordination, along with the costs of establishing a food hub facility, and for the purchase of trucks and equipment."
The plan is that Minot would host the food hub.
Huber said too many towns are losing their grocers, as the grocers have slim margins and dismal bottom lines.
"Rural development service staff and I have visited more than 20 grocery stores in recent months," Huber said. "Store owners are sharing stories of missed deliveries, and frustration with having to pay more at the wholesale level for products, than what you can buy that same item for at the retail level at one of the big-box stores in the metro areas."
A food cooperative is already operating in Northeast North Dakota.
