CASE STUDY
Épicerie Coop Grocery Moonbeam
A community’s collective response to potential food insecurity and economic decline*

Many communities, especially in geographically remote locations such as Northern Ontario, are experiencing a declining population that brings along difficulties in maintaining critical businesses at the local level. When the owner of the only grocery store in Moonbeam announced that he would close the business unless he found a suitable buyer by August 2012, the local community realized that they had to band together to avoid the fate of neighbouring towns.

 

Their answer to this solution was to form a consumer co-operative by collectively purchasing the grocery store and converting it to a co-op.

 

This successful conversion story can serve as an inspiring example to communities across Canada and globally that risk losing privately-owned institutions and businesses that the local community deem to be indispensable anchor organizations.

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*Case study research and writing by Derya Tarhan (2021)