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Good Grocer relocating to Eat Street due to I-35W construction, store liquidation sale starts today

The nonprofit grocery store has called the corner of Lake and Stevens home since 2015, where it’s become an important fixture in an area with three times as many low-income residents than in the surrounding seven counties. Beyond being the only option in a food desert, the market sells discounted food and offers a unique opportunity: Pick up just one 2.5-hour volunteer shift a month and receive 25 percent off those already reasonable prices.

Good Grocer secures new home on Eat Street

Good Grocer has landed a new location in Whittier, and the store will close for several months while a new store is constructed at 2644 Nicollet Ave. S.

The current Lake Street store is approaching a deadline to move out, and the last day of operation is Feb. 11. The store will be demolished to make way for a new southbound I-35W exit ramp to Lake Street.

For Good Grocer’s customer-volunteers, healthy food — and a sense of purpose

On one of the busiest streets in south Minneapolis, where immigrants from all over the world have opened up everything from restaurants to car dealerships, there’s a small yellow and beige building whose exterior advertises meat, dairy, fruit and fresh vegetables.

The messages would seem to indicate that The Good Grocer is a typical grocery store — and it is, in all ways but one. Its customers are also its workers, people who volunteer in exchange for a discount on their purchases.

Grocer's Fresh Idea Lowers Prices For Low-Income Residents Who Volunteer

This grocery store has a business model you just can’t beet.

Good Grocer, a new food market in Minneapolis, is putting a fresh spin on the traditional co-op model to help low-income residents, Twin Cities Daily Planet reported. By offering reduced prices in exchange for volunteer work, the store hopes to make quality, healthy food more widely accessible.

Co-op Meets Food Desert: Cash-Strapped Volunteers Get a Discount on Groceries

Members of Good Grocer in Minneapolis swap bagging and stocking duties for a break on the bill.

Skip the boxes of processed macaroni and cheese and fill your shopping cart with fruits and vegetables—it’s commonsense advice for folks who want to get (or stay) healthy. But for unemployed or minimum-wage workers struggling to cough up enough cash for rent or day care costs, the sticker shock over the price of a pint of blackberries or a pound of grapes usually makes the cheap meal-in-a-box much more appealing.

Grocery Store Helps Low-Income Shoppers Afford Food With Volunteer Program

If you’re a low-income resident in Minneapolis, having fresh and affordable food doesn’t have to be one of your worries.

That’s because a grocery store called Good Grocer uses volunteers to run the business, but with a feel-good twist: In exchange for 2.5 hours of helping out, they’ll receive 25 percent off the price of their groceries. The volunteer program began when the supermarket opened this June, founded by former pastor Kurt Vickman.

Grocery store hopes to eliminate food desert in south Minneapolis

Good Grocer started as a church food shelf three years ago has morphed into what looks like an upscale supermarket. The only difference is there are two prices on each price tag; one for walk in customers and one for the volunteers who work at the store a couple of hours a month in exchange for a 25 percent discount.

Grocery store giving discounts for time

In south Minneapolis, just off Lake Street and Stevens Avenue, Kurt Vickman, the owner of the Good Grocer hopes his concept is where diversity and deal will come together.

“For me, there was this part of me that wanted to be about doing the good instead of just speaking the good,” Vickman said.

Kurt Vickman interview

When Kurt Vickman sees that an existing model is no longer connecting with people, he gets to work imagining a new paradigm. That has been the impetus behind all of Kurt’s innovative leadership…