Our History
In 2006, a market study showed that a downtown Racine grocer specializing in natural foods could fare quite well. But thanks, in part, to the slowing economy at the time, the idea fizzled. Fast forward to late 2009, when a small group of people, keenly interested in fresh, local and sustainable food options for Racine, met around a dining room table to talk about the feasibility of starting a community-owned grocery store. Friends from the Twin Cities (Pat Cumbie, CDS Consulting and Sean Doyle, Seward Co-Op) presented information including a copy of “How To Start a Food Co-op”, along with the names of others who would prove to be invaluable resources. We were inspired. Knowing that a similar idea had previously gotten some traction, this enterprising group of folks decided to spend loads of their personal time and energy educating themselves about starting a co-op and began to seriously breathe life into the project now known as, and aptly named, the Wild Root Market. (Racine means “root” in French, after all!) During the summer of 2010, six of us ventured to cooperatives in Madison, Viroqua and LaCrosse, learning as much as we could about how those co-ops got started and how they are managing to thrive in their communities. Our group has now grown from a small handful to twelve steering committee members who are meeting on a regular basis to move this idea forward.
September of 2011 marked the launch of Wild Root Market’s owner campaign. Over 200 devoted and remarkable folks joined our efforts within the month of September and became designated as our Founding Owners. The number of owners obtained within that first month was unprecedented in the coop world and gave the board the reassurance that Wild Root Market was indeed what folks in Racine would support. This initial money allowed the board to hire a consultant from CDS ( Cooperative Development Services) Consulting to perform a market study based on three locations that were researched by the Site Committee. Over 25 sites were analyzed by the Site Committee, out of these, three sites were deemed to be the most appropriate and met the criteria established by the board. The results of the study found that all three sites are viable. At this point the buildings were further analyzed by contractors to determine the costs that would be involved with bringing these sites to life.
Check out the Our Timeline in the next tab to see where we are headed next…