Implementing Grocery Cooperatives in Low-Income Communities: Case Example of the Renaissance Community Cooperative in Greensboro, North Carolina

Over the last few decades, the U.S. food retail environment has experienced a significant evolution in the means by which it delivers product to consumers. Food retail innovation has bred new models of food delivery that attempt to improve convenience while recognizing the need to meet existing and emerging consumer preferences. For example, a growing subset of U.S. consumers are interested in consuming local, organic and natural foods for environmental, ethical, health and other plausible reasons. As a result, an increasing number of farm to consumer delivery models, such as community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs and farmers markets, have emerged to meet the demand of niche markets. In fact, within a 10-year period (1998-2009) the number of farmers markets increased by 92% to well over 5,000 across the U.S. and since 1986 the number of CSA programs increased from two to over 1,000. For another subset of the population, food preferences are less choice-driven and are essentially determined by income levels. Since affordable community-supported agriculture programs and farmers markets are not commonplace in many low-income communities, low-income consumers reply largely on free food pantries, convenience stores and fast food restaurants. None of these options generally offer healthy food options, relative to the food retail options available to consumers with higher incomes. Income therefore is the first key indicator underlying access to healthy food. Even as the number and variety of food retail options available to most consumers have risen in recent years, there is tremendous variability in access of different populations to good, healthy and affordable food based on how much they are able to pay.Master of City and Regional Plannin