CECD conducts surveys to help rural businesses

More than 6,000 surveys left K-State in early March for a visit to rural grocery stores and customers in Kansas.

"There are actually two types of surveys that we sent, one for store owners, and one for grocery store customers," said Chandra Ruthstrom, administrative assistant for the Center for Engagement and Community Development at K-State.

The grocery store owner survey is intended to gather information state-wide to better understand industry challenges and strategies for success of rural Kansas grocery stores. The survey was sent to stores serving communities with a population of 2,000 or less. The information from these surveys will be shared with interested store owners at a rural grocer summit at the Kansas Sampler Foundation in Inman, Kan., on June 1, 2008.

The grocery store customer surveys are taking place in the service area of five cooperating grocery stores. These surveys went to every box holder within an area surrounding each of the cooperating stores; and the surveys will collect information that will help the stores better understand the product and service needs of the customers in their area.

The surveys were created by staff in Agricultural Economics at K-State, with the support and feedback from staff from the Kansas Sampler Foundation, the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development, the participating rural grocery store owners and CECD staff.

"While the immediate feedback of this project will help the participating stores, I am also pleased that these same survey tools will be available for use by K-State Research and Extension staff to assist other stores too," CECD Director David Procter said.

The surveys are currently available online at www.ruralgrocery.org. This Web site was created by K-State to be both an informational networking site as well as a resource location for rural store owners. This initiative is possible due to generous support from the USDA Rural Development Office.

Rural Grocery Store Sustainability Initiative

Confronting issues of business development, public health and community sustainability, CECD is partnering with the Kansas Sampler Foundation, the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development, grocery store owners from across the state and faculty and staff from the departments of agricultural economics, human nutrition and rural sociology at K-State to identify and develop models to sustain retail sources of food for rural Kansas citizens.

The Center for Engagement and Community Development and its partners have identified nearly 200 grocery stores in rural towns across Kansas with populations under 2,000 and are beginning a much-needed conversation with these rural Kansas grocers.

Through this initiative, CECD seeks to create new models for rural business development and sustainability and plans to address specific questions such as,

• How can we increase local customer loyalty?
• How can rural business best compete with large chain stores?
• What are the best strategies for dealing with minimum buying requirements?
• What models of rural business ownership are most effective?
• Are there alternative models of distribution for getting products to rural business owners?

The specific goals of this initiative include:

• To create a rural grocery website for sharing information with one another,
• To create and deliver a marketing survey of customers needs and wishes,
• To create a list of rural grocer best practices, and
• To begin to develop a "buy local" campaign.

If you would like to be included in this conversation or would like to talk about rural business development retention, please contact CECD at 785-532-6868 or cecd@k-state.edu.

Procter speaks to Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference

On January 12th, David Procter, Director of the Center for Engagement and Community Development (CECD), presented, "The Rural Grocery Store Initiative," at the 2008 Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference in St. Joseph, Missouri. This regional conference attracted nearly 400 local food and flower growers, food distributors, sustainable farmers, and university extension staff from Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, and Oklahoma.

Dr. Procter outlined the rural grocery store initiative organized by CECD, the USDA Rural Development Office, the Kansas Sampler Foundation, the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development and KSU's department of Agricultural Economics. Procter spoke about the importance of sustaining our rural grocery stores in times of the big box store and convenience, low-cost shopping patterns.

Procter emphasized to the audience how these grocery stores remain vitally important for economic development, community development, and public health. He pointed out that increasingly our rural areas are becoming "food deserts" — geographic areas of our state where nutritious and fresh foods are unavailable — and that it is the young, poor, and elderly most negatively impacted by a lack of local grocery options. Procter pointed out that local growers could be an important part of this community sustainability effort. Procter and conference attendees talked together about how local growers might work in partnership with rural groceries to make local foods and products available while at the same time helping sustain local grocery stores.