Eat to Live, a South Side food cooperative, has again shut down after receiving a total of more than $1 million in donations from Syracuse University, New York state and other local organizations.

The co-op aimed to create an affordable grocery store for the residents on the city’s South Side. Some portions of the South Side are considered a “food desert,” records show. The United States Department of Agriculture defines a food desert as a typically low-income area with little access to affordable, nutritious food.

At Eat to Live, member-owners of the food co-op would invest in the store and share the profits earned. A resident, though, did not need to be a member-owner to shop at the store.

Though the market earned $3,000 in sales in December, according to Syracuse.com, it did not make enough to pay for its $18,000 monthly costs.

Howie Hawkins, the secretary of the cooperative, said he was disappointed by the co-op’s closure.

“Well, sales didn’t go up to cover the cost and that’s the immediate reason we have to stop store operations,” said Hawkins, a former Green Party mayoral candidate. “So, we’re trying to figure out how to operate it so it covers its cost.”

Eat to Live opened in October 2013 with support from SU, the Gifford Foundation and the Central New York Community Foundation. After a few weeks, though, the general manager at the time was fired, according to Syracuse.com. Within two months, the store closed.

For three years, the Eat to Live food co-op remained closed.

In 2016, a new management, led by Jeremy DeChario, who had experience in running a co-op, offered consultation and advice for Eat to Live. However, the store could not pay their bills and remained bankrupt until it shut down completely again last month.

“To have a successful co-op, it’s a lot of neighbourhood buy-in,” DeChario said. “Small-scale grocery businesses are really challenging because of a lot of different reasons — from rising food and labor cost to general materials, new equipment cost, competition with other stores, delusion of organic standards and favouring agro business over small scale producers.”

Evan Weissman, assistant professor of food studies at SU and an expert on “food justice,” said Syracuse needs co-ops.

“Places like central New York, where there is inadequate public transportation and where there is extremely high rates of poverty, it’s really important to have neighborhood-based grocery stores to make sure folks have at least geographic or physical access to food,” Weissman said.

Both DeChario and Weissman said they agreed that Eat to Live needs to do better.

“They weren’t able to attract enough business to stay open. They need more sales, more groceries,” DeChario said.

Hawkins said the store’s coffee shop will reopen next month. He said he thinks the costs of that will not be overwhelming.

“How to get the produce and fresh food, we are still working on the plan,” Hawkins said. “Any business runs into problems, all you got to do is solve the problem, not get discouraged.”

Published on January 23, 2018 at 10:18 pm

Contact Eshalaxmi: erbarlin@syr.edu