Blog
Happy 49th Birthday to Open Harvest!
Can you believe that we are celebrating 49 years of cooperation this summer? We’ve come a long way since our first little store on Randolph Street. And it’s true. The vision and determination of our founding members planted the seeds in 1975 and started the journey that led to our beautiful new store that we are all enjoying today!
Many conversations with customers and owners are focused on some combination of the comment and question: “I love the new store! How’s everything going?” And to put it simply, it’s awesome:
- Sales are strong. We are outperforming our sales projections that were provided by our market study and subsequent pro forma calculations.
- The project is under budget. Our $4.2M project is easily coming under budget. This puts the co-op in a strong position to adjust to our new store and prepare to service our loans. Our highly conservative approach to the budget and careful monitoring of project expenses has paid off!
- We are the talk of the town. We welcomed over 600+ new members in the last fiscal year, this is an enormous jump in ownership. Plus, we welcomed so many new customers and visitors, since our doors opened in February.
- It feels like home. Staff are getting settled in and we’re focused on the work of revising all our operational processes. It’s been an adjustment understanding our new customer flow and shopping patterns, but we are getting the hang of it.
- And we are just getting started!
The last several years have been an incredible challenge for board members and staff. We safely navigated the pandemic and at the same time, we also ramped up our search for a new store site, began plans to raise the capital necessary for the project, and delved into the conceptual stages of the store design & project feasibility. It was a BIG lift, all at once!
However, here we are, and all that hard work has paid off in ways I only dreamed of. I’m so incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished together – we are ready to GROW!
So, in short, it’s been an incredible year. We appreciate the generosity and support of our co-op owners, shoppers, and the wider Lincoln community. We have an exciting week planned full of food, activities, and fun. Please stop by this week to help us celebrate!
Finally, I’ll be holding store tours tomorrow, Tuesday July 23rd at 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm. Please RSVP at amy@openharvest.coop or sign-up in-store. I look forward to seeing you there and sharing more about our Relocation Project and a behind the scenes peek of our new store!
In cooperation,