Vital Statistics
Began Operations: 1995
Expansion Completed: June 28, 2005
Pre-Expansion:
Original Store Square Footage: 1,600 sq. ft. (920 sq. ft. retail)
Employees: 16 (9.5 FTE)
Members: 890
Post-Expansion:
Store Square Footage: 7,300 sq. ft. (4,400 sq. ft. retail)
Employees: 51 employees (34 FTE)
Members: 1,700
After four years of planning and preparation, Viroqua Food Cooperative moved into its new building in June 2005 on the historic main street of Viroqua, Wisconsin. CDS provided project management, market and feasibility studies, board training, and policy governance work to the co-op in support of its relocation and expansion. . “CDS consultants were instrumental in helping us make this a successful project,” says Viroqua Food Cooperative’s General Manager Jan Rasikas.
“There are so many things about a cooperative business that are different than a health food store or grocery store,” Rasikas says. “It’s important to be profitable, but we operate with other bottom-line focuses such as concern for the community and educating the public on the organic, natural and local foods we sell. CDS understands cooperatives and has a lot of expertise to choose from.”
Viroqua is a small town of 4,300 people in southwestern Wisconsin, located 90 miles north of Madison and 35 miles south of LaCrosse, (home to People’s Food Cooperative). While Viroqua is not a bedroom community of a major metropolitan area, they are strongly supported by the surrounding community. “Viroqua draws people who are interested in organic farming, Waldorf education, and small town living,” she explains. “The Co-op is another extension of what is important to our community.” Rasikas estimates that 74% of their sales come from their members. The co-op’s membership increased from (pre-expansion) 890 to 1,700 members.
“We were a tiny store of 920 square feet moving to a space of 7,300 square feet. Something gets lost when you jump into becoming a larger store and it takes preparedness to make this kind of move,” Rasikas explains. They started by creating a long range planning committee. They budgeted to bring in CDS consultants during the early planning stages, which is not always typical of a small store, she notes.
Using the CDS Tool Box for expansions and relocations, they completed internal readiness tests which served a guide for the rest of the project. This was key to understanding what we could do, she says. “One mistake we would have made without a market study, for instance, would have been to build too small,” she says, noting that other small co-ops face that kind of dilemma. “We said, ‘why do we need an expert to tell us what to do in our community?’ But the experience was an important turning point in our ability to make good decisions. The expert view and input to areas and issues we hadn’t experienced plus our own mission-driven goals allowed us to be successful in planning our expansion project.”
They brought in CDS project manager Denise Chevalier to manage the project and assist with the many decisions to be made regarding purchasing property, building the facility with environmentally friendly materials, buying brand new fixtures and staffing. “She was invaluable to the project,” Rasikas says. “It was a $1.6 million dollar project and we came in on time and under budget.”
Other CDS consultants worked with the co-op on market and feasibility studies, board training, and policy governance work, all of which helped ease the co-op’s growing pains. As the actual moving date drew nearer, Rasikas was able to depend on CDS project management support and turn her attention to staff training. “Even though it was a stressful time for everyone, we were able to transition our staff without the usual burnout or turnover during the relocation.”
Actual sales for their first fiscal year (June 2006) in the new location exceeded projections. The co-op is on track to exceed projections for its next fiscal year also.
Viroqua Food Cooperative will continue to draw on the CDS consultants’ expertise as needed, Rasikas says. “Now that we know the value of a market study, we’ll continue to do that periodically. While we know our members and understand our community, there’s value in understanding the percentage of the natural foods dollar to overall grocery dollars, understanding where and how far we draw our customers from is part of our overall planning. That’s not us guessing,” she says. “That’s having someone professionally look at the numbers.” A follow-up market study showed they were drawing more customers south of Viroqua than previously expected, as well as drawing customers from other neighboring counties not originally anticipated.
CDS Food Cooperative Project Consultants
Denise Chevalier – Project Management
Bill Gessner – Feasibility study, project management support
Pete Davis – Market analysis, site location
Michael Healy – Policy governance board training
Mel Braverman – Operational and financial improvement
