Original Minneapolis Co-op closes shop

By Greg Bastien

Nov. 4, 2007, marked the end of an era in local co-op history: North Country Co-op (the co-op that started the co-op movement in the Twin Cities from the back porch of Diane and Alvin Odermann’s West Bank house with a $100 loan from Debbie Shroyer) closed its doors in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood.

A purveyor of organic, bulk and retail food stuffs for over 37 years, this grocery has been a staple of the near southside community. Financial collapse is the reason given for its closure, with over $72,000 in losses last year and projected losses of over $10,000 per month for this year. Flat sales for the last five years and mounting demands from suppliers to pay COD made continuing the store impossible in the opinion of its board. On Oct. 22 the members of the co-op ratified the decision to close.

How did it come to this?

The StarTribune article of Oct. 24 indicated the overall health of the grocery co-op community in the Twin Cities was excellent, and North Country certainly had loyal members and name recognition. It had recently changed from worker-owned and managed to a volunteer board and paid employees, but it seems like it just couldn’t dig itself out of its hole. Seward Café is probably the last remaining holdout from the ’60s revolution on the West Bank. It is still run and owned by a worker collective. Dreams die hard. What was once thought to be the future, no longer fit into today’s “bottom-line” “cost-benefit analysis” fast buck value system.