About 35 residents filled the city hall's Fireplace Room for the two-hour meeting, which featured Stuart Reid, a specialist with the support organization Food Co-op 500. As such, it was a pretty rare event.
"I don't do a lot of these face-to-face presentations," Reid said, putting the number at about half a dozen to date. "But I do do them when I feel it's important."
After an hourlong presentation outlining the process he recommended for starting a co-op, Reid took questions from several community members about potential business models, operating methods and the potential consumer climate.
His assessment was that the community's next move should be to work out the details of what running a co-op in Morning Sun would look like. "You're doing good on the vision," he said.
The meeting was the latest in a series held by Morning Sun residents, who are seeking to keep their local grocery store from closing down. A steering committee was formed in January to explore the possibility of taking over the store as a co-op, and has since visited several such stores in the region.
Current store owners Terry and Julie Crawford have been trying to sell since 2007, but have had trouble finding takers. Last year, longtime provider Affiliated Foods Midwest opted to stop supplying the store, reflecting a growing reluctance for large suppliers to back stores in smaller communities. It was a problem that Reid said a co-op would likely face as well.
"This is definitely the small end of the scale for a town that can support a co-op," he said. "That doesn't mean it can't happen. I can't tell you that."
Reid said he had worked with co-op stores that ranged in size from less than 1,000 square feet to more than 10,000. The Morning Sun store comes in at around 2,000 square feet.
And Morning Sun could have an edge, he added, since it would be taking over an existing store rather than starting one from scratch.
"It's unusual for a co-op to obtain an existing store before it closes down," he said. "You'll definitely save a lot of steps and anguish if you obtain an existing business. Unless you're just inheriting someone else's problems."
Some residents worried they might be doing exactly that. Tammy Newbury, a Morning Sun resident who works in Burlington, worried that the town's younger residents might be inclined simply to shop where they work. "There's not a lot of support from the younger generation here," she said.
Residents floated the idea that a co-op might begin to draw people from nearby communities such as Winfield, which lost its grocery store. Others worried that rising gas prices made that doubtful.
More than once, Reid said he couldn't say whether a co-op was the right answer for Morning Sun. On balance, he said, running a co-op tended to be "slightly" more difficult than a standard grocery store. But, he added, "co-ops can succeed where other stores wouldn't."
"If a group of people like this decides to open a store after putting their own time, energy and money in it, you know they're gonna be loyal customers," he said.
And he said there was much more enthusiasm in the community than most of those he has spoken to.
Angie Sanders, executive director of the Louisa Development Group, joined in. "This has been my most exciting project since joining the Louisa Development Group," she said, "so I'm really rooting for you."
Reid listed many traits that could be found in a successful co-op, including responsiveness to the community and a committed membership. But he also said it was important to have a "key person" who could take the lead in its management and operation. And he recommended finding that person as soon as possible.
And, in addition to recommending the committee incorporate and hire a consultant to guide them through the process, he told them to keep looking at other stores. "In many cases, the most help an organization gets is from another existing co-op," he said.
Even at this early stage, the Morning Sun effort has been drawing the attention of surrounding towns. Jane Krebill, who came up from Donnellson to attend the meeting, said her community was just starting a similar process. Donnellson's grocery store closed in 2002.
"I wish we would have started six years ago, like you are now, before people got used to going somewhere else," she told the group.
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