Ventures/Community venture · demonstration
A neighbourhood supermarket owned by its members
Members own it, shop in it and decide together; a professional manager runs it.
Budget to assemble€600,000
Members sought300+
Entry sharefrom €200
- The object
- A member-owned food store with professional management and shared purchasing. Park Slope Food Coop (Brooklyn, since 1973) and La Louve (Paris) run this way.
- The economics
- Set-up: premises, fittings, first stock
- Revenue: sales to members and, where allowed, the public
- Costs: rent, staff, stock, energy
- Financing: member shares plus a bank or local partners; shares alone rarely cover it
- The geometry
- A cooperative designed for several stakeholders (in France, a SCIC), or another cooperative form
- Member shares, with governance written in the statutes
- It starts when
- 300 members register
- Premises are found
- A manager is identified
- A bank or local partners confirm the rest of the financing
- What you receive
- Members own a share and a vote, and shop in their own store. Risks: footfall, margins, volunteer energy over time.