Welcome to the Rural Grocery Initiative
The Rural Grocery Initiative, housed within K-State Research and Extension, aims to sustain locally-owned rural grocery stores to enhance community vitality and improve access to healthy foods by identifying, developing, and sharing resources that support grocers and rural communities.
National Rural Grocery Summit 2022
Save the date! We are pleased to announce the National Rural Grocery Summit will be hosted in Wichita, KS on June 20-21, 2022. More details will be available soon.
The National Rural Grocery Summit is the premier networking and resource-sharing venue for independent grocers and rural food access stakeholders.
This biennial summit brings together store owners, citizen leaders, food suppliers, academic researchers, healthy food access practitioners, policy makers, and funders to learn from and strategize with one another about sustaining rural grocery stores and improving rural access to healthy foods.
View materials from previous Rural Grocery Summits here.
Double Up Food Bucks Informational Webinar
In September, the Rural Grocery Initiative teamed up with the Double Up Heartland Collaborative to offer an informational webinar on the Double Up Food Bucks program.
Double Up Food Bucks provides an opportunity to leverage SNAP and matching funds to increase produce sales at your store. Not only that, but the entire community benefits from the program by having greater access to healthy food options.
To watch a recording of the webinar and learn how your store can participate in the program, click here.
Keeping Groceries Alive Webinar Series
This eight-part webinar series presents the steps for completing a successful grocery business transition. In many cases, some form of community or shared ownership model provides a viable opportunity for maintaining a vibrant rural grocery store. Each webinar explores a different topic pertinent to successful business transitions.
Click here to find the recordings, slides, and additional materials for each webinar in the series.
