The Little Falls co-op that could: Making a community-owned grocery store a reality
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Susy Prosapio has lived in Little Falls for three decades. She says grocery options in the downtown have dwindled to zero.
“Way back, there were a lot of little, tiny stores — neighborhood stores,” she said. “We used to have a downtown grocery store, and that store had closed.”
The area received a federal designation as a low-income, low-food-access area. So, 11 years ago, a group of community members decided to take action.
“We put together the meeting to say to the community, if we wait for a large Cub Foods or a large food grocery store to come in, it won’t happen,” Prosapio said. “But we as a community could work together to start our own grocery store that really focused on featuring local foods, fresh foods.”
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Their idea has blossomed into a co-op called the Purple Carrot Market with more than 800 owners.
JQ Hannah leads Food Co-op Initiative, which supports people across the country working to start community-owned grocery stores. Hannah says what’s happening in Little Falls is part of a nationwide trend.
“A lot of the organizing is happening in smaller rural communities that are losing that access,” Hannah said. “They just have some very basic grocery access.”
It took several years to find a building for the Purple Carrot. Finally, this fall, construction began. Now, the co-op has its eyes on a grand opening in 2026.
But for that to happen, it will take a lot of money.
“Looking historically, back in the 1970s, the cost of entry was much smaller,” said Craig Upright, a professor at Winona State University who wrote Grocery Activism: The Radical History of Food Cooperatives in Minnesota. “That era has passed.”
Food co-ops that began in the last decade are “multi-million dollar operations,” Upright says. In the case of the Purple Carrot Market, it’ll take about $1.5 million to get the store going, Prosapio said.
The co-op is trying to raise half of that amount in a capital campaign.
At a recent event, about a dozen co-op owners and prospective owners gathered at the Purple Carrot building to celebrate their latest milestone.
Among those who came is Nikki Schaeffer. She recently joined the co-op because she's tired of scouring Walmart for healthy foods that meet her family’s needs.
“Probably the most exciting part for me is that I won’t have to spend hours in the grocery store going up and down every aisle and looking through all of the options to find good options for my family,” she said
Erin May, meanwhile, owns Wholesome Living Acres and is a small indoor vertical farmer. She’s eager to have a place to sell her produce year-round.
“It's really hard to get in these large-scale grocery stores. It’s nearly impossible because we’re very small,” she said. “They want to focus on large farms and where they can get all of their groceries from — not just one item.”
Nearby businesses are also looking forward to what the new store might mean for downtown. Just across the street, Paula Kampa runs Kampa Gerbi and Associates, an insurance business, with her daughter. She bought into the co-op for all of her employees.
“With Purple Carrot, where the members take a position in that ownership, [it] only makes them want their downtown to be better, so they’re always going to be advocating for that, for those small business owners to stay in this downtown area and to promote Purple Carrot also.”
While it’s been a long journey with still more to go, Prosapio says she’s as committed as ever.
“I believe in it,” she said. “I believe our community working together can solve this community need.”
