The Mobile Market Concept

In the aftermath of Katrina, the Board of the New Orleans Food Coop struggled with what action to take next. Our pre-Katrina planning effort directed towards opening a storefront on Elysian Fields near the River was kaput. Time spent on possibly opening in part of a small juice bar and restaurant in Marigny did not pan out as we had hoped.

Bridget Kelly, an early mover and shaker in the effort to start a food coop in New Orleans, a founding member, and a member of the first Board pre-Katrina, argued in favor of a mobile market. In the 2005 summer before Katrina, Bridget and Budd Hirons, another founding member and the force behind our Buying Club, got a $5,000 grant for our Buying Club from the Louisiana Public Health Institute’s Steps to a Healthier New Orleans to invest in an urban CSA program “community supported agriculture” in partnership with the Central City Farmers Market, Café Reconcile and Pastimes Farms from Rosland, Louisiana delivering weekly shares of produce. According to Bridget, the “mobile market” concept is flexible and means any number of things – it is essentially making food more available in the community. Over the summer of 2005 until Katrina, Bridget, intern Lisa Peron, and Budd got the fresh produce from Pastime Farms and sold it at the Jackson Avenue Farmers Market. But the Storm did in the Buying Club’s experiment with the mobile market concept. Pastime Farms which had been one of Louisiana’s largest organic farms has yet to return to capacity and the New Orleans Farmers Markets again.

Other people also thought a mobile market might be the right way for NOFC to go. Marilyn Scholl of Cooperative Development Services, a highly respected group of consultants who work with would-be and expanding cooperatives around the country, suggested that a mobile market might be the way for the New Orleans Food Community to begin to meet the need in post-Katrina New Orleans.

During the fall and winter of 2005-2006, Bridget and Anne Sobol, another founding member and a Board member post-Katrina, participated in a series of telephone seminars run by Food Coop 500. Food Coop 500 is a cooperative effort of three cooperative organizations, the National Cooperative Bank, Cooperative Development Services, and the National Cooperative Grocers Association. Food Coop 500 is dedicated to increasing the number of cooperative grocery stores to 500 by 2010 and to strengthening food cooperatives throughout the county. One of the Food Coop 500 telephone seminars was run by Peter Davis, a consultant with expertise in locating cooperatives within their communities in order to maximize their success. Davis’ methodology uses Census data and extensive data Davis has collected about existing coops to analyze the likelihood of a natural food coop succeeding in a community and where in the community it is most likely to prosper. The market feasibility study that results from planning of the sort described by Davis is an integral part of raising the money for a new food coop. Bridget and Anne realized as they listened to Davis’ talk that the lack of reliable data about New Orleans post-Katrina would make it difficult to conduct a market feasibility study. It occurred to them that a mobile market operating in various New Orleans neighborhoods could effectively function as a test of the feasibility of a natural foods market in those neighborhoods.

In May of this year, Andrew McLeod, a consultant who works with developing coops, visited New Orleans and talked to members of our Board. McLeod also thought the mobile market concept was promising.

Winrock Grant Application

Bridget approached the Winrock Foundation for help in getting a mobile market started. Donna Uptagrafft at Winrock agreed to include money for a feasibility study for a New Orleans mobile market in Winrock’s application to the US Department of Agriculture for a Rural Cooperative Development Grant program (RCDG). If Winrock gets the USDA money, NOFC will get a grant of $10,000 for a feasibility study for a mobile market. Winrock did not get RCDG funding from USDA last year, but it has gotten these funds in past years and believes it is likely it will again in the new fiscal year that begins October 1. Winrock did not want to go ahead with funding a mobile market until NOFC did a feasibility study. Under the circumstances, the feasibility study will make use of what data there is about New Orleans’ post-Katrina population and demographics. It will also look into what particular neighborhoods might be most in need of and receptive to a mobile market.

Food Coop 500 Grant Application

NOFC’S Mobile Market

This remodeling involved the skilled assistance of many architects, welders, mechanics, carpenters, artists and technicians who built shelving, an entry ramp, an awning, extra windows, an 850 watt sound system and refrigeration. We also installed solar panels for electricity and biodiesel for fuel. . . . We painted it orange and purple (our colors) and a local artist added our logo, website and some familiar phrases like “Food Justice!” and “Healthy food for everyone!”

The notion that the New Orleans Food Coop could put such a truck out in neighborhoods sounds great, but at least in the case of Peoples Grocery’s mobile market, the venture was not self-supporting. It cost more to operate the market than the market brought in, and it was necessary to raise outside funding to operate the market. For this reason, their mobile market is currently “in hiatis.”

We are firmly committed to trying to find ways to keep our expenses low and to expanding opportunities to make our mobile market self-sustaining. It is our intention to require some sort of prepayment for our buying club orders made through the mobile market. This ought to reduce our costs. Also, because we are a cooperative, we hope we can lower expenses of our mobile market by using volunteer help. We will explore all possible options to put the truck to use to make money. But if our mobile market is not self-sustaining, we are committed to raising additional funds for its operation.

If the mobile market is not self-sustaining is not necessarily a bad thing, if it advances us towards the eventual opening of a storefront. The mobile market will enable NOFC to accomplish at least three of its goals. First, it will enable NOFC to provide access to healthy food in neighborhoods that currently have few if any grocery stores. See the food map developed by New Orleans Food & Farm Network, http://www.nolafoodmap.com/. Second, it will help build awareness of the effort to establish a food coop in New Orleans and will lead to more founding members and thus advance the eventual establishment of a cooperative store. Third, it will help NOFC determine what areas are most receptive to a natural foods cooperative, i.e., it will effectively function as a market feasibility study for a food coop. If we have to spend money to keep the mobile market running beyond what the market brings in, it is okay as long as it does in fact build awareness of and commitment to the value of a cooperative grocery in New Orleans. The proof will be in whether operation of the mobile market brings in new founding members.