Business trends
After nine years, Old Creamery owners eye change to cooperative
Thursday, November 19, 20091
2
3
4
CUMMINGTON - Running a community hub is a lot of work, which is why the owners of Old Creamery Grocery and Deli are seeking to turn the popular Hilltown gathering spot into a cooperative venture owned by the community.
Saturday, Alice Cozzolino and Amy Pulley started handing out letters to customers outlining their hopes for the future of the shop. While they plan to stay on as managers, they want to sell the business to the people who use it.
"The hopes are that it would look very much the same as it looks now, but it would be a much more sustainable entity with ownership spread on a wide basis," Cozzolino said in an interview.
Cozzolino and Pulley are just beginning to conceptualize how the Creamery will make this big transition. They're putting together a steering committee which eventually would become a co-op board of directors.
They're also consulting with the South Deerfield-based Cooperative Development Institute, which provides training and technical assistance to cooperatives around the Northeast focused on retail, housing, agriculture, forestry and other areas, according to its Web site, www.cdi.coop.
Located at the intersection of Routes 9 and 112 and topped by fiberglass Holstein cow, the Creamery is a convenience store, cafe, a venue for films and poetry readings, as well as a home to a wholesale food buying club and lending library.
Cozzolino and Pulley bought the shop in 2000 from Ronald Berenson. Since then they've done renovations and made other investments in the building, Cozzolino said increase the value of the business.
The couple have been considering turning the Creamery into a co-op since the spring, Cozzolino said.
In their letter to customers, Cozzolino and Pulley said they "don't have the financial, physical, and emotional resources to continue with the current ownership and operating model."
"We continue to be committed to the vision of a thriving and dynamic Creamery that continues to serve and respond to the needs of this community," Cozzolino and Pulley wrote. "The very positive vision of a community-owned cooperative has re-energized us."
There are many details still to be figured out, but Cozzolino said the basic idea is to put major business decisions in the hands of a board of directors, while she and Pulley and their staff handle day-to-day operations.
Andrew Baker, executive director of the Hilltown Community Development Corp. in Chesterfield, applauded Cozzolino and Pulley's initiative.
"I think it's a great idea what they've got in mind, and there's a good precedent up the road," Baker said, referring to McCusker's Market in Shelburne Falls, formerly a privately-owned business which was sold in 2007 to the Franklin Community Cooperative, the member-owned group that also runs Green Fields Market in Greenfield.
Changing into a cooperative is a good way to keep "anchor" businesses going after private owners retire or take on different roles, Baker said.
Jen Caruso, a specialist with the Cooperative Development Institute, said the Petersham Country Market is eyeing a similar course. That business and the Creamery are fairly unique cases, she said, in that the infrastructures of both businesses are already well established while the cooperatives to run them don't exist yet.
The Institute works primarily with groups forming cooperative businesses from scratch, Caruso said.
It typically takes from 18 months to two years to get a co-op up and running, she said. Speaking generally, Caruso said a rural retail cooperative like the Creamery would need about 20 percent collateral from community members to leverage other financing from local banks and grants.
"The strength is in the numbers," Caruso said. "A mix of finance-related partners is often what makes a project go, but first and foremost a community has to express their buy-in."
Cozzolino said the democratic nature of cooperatives is in line with the philosophy and vision of the Creamery that she and Pulley share.
"We're not in this business to make a profit," she said. "We're in this business to serve our community."
Renovations completed within the last two years include a new roof guaranteed for 50 years and a new septic system.
The owners removed the Creamery's two gasoline pumps - one last year, the other several years before - after equipment problems. Cozzolino said concerns that gas could contaminate the soil prompted her and Pulley to end this aspect of their business.
A tank supplying the pumps failed twice in the nine years the couple have owned the store, Cozzolino said. The gas was contained both times by a secondary tank, and never leaked into the soil, she said.
Over the last nine years Cozzolino and Pulley have made a number of other environmentally conscious changes to the Creamery.
In 2007 they worked with artist and activist Leni Fried to start the Bag Share program, which offers reusable, rather than disposable, bags to customers. Last year they did away with paper plates and plastic utensils for customers who dine at the shop, switching to china and silverware. (Customers on the go can still take their coffee in a paper cup.) A community auction helped them raise $13,000 for the dinnerware as well as a water-efficient washer and sanitizer.
Also last year, Cozzolino and Pulley converted one of the Creamery's two second-floor apartments into a lending library focused on environmental issues, and space for a wholesale food purchasing club used by 40 to 50 people.
The other apartment also made room for the Creamery business office, which used to be sandwiched between the wine and the candy bars in the store downstairs.
James F. Lowe can be reached at jlowe@gazettenet.com.
