Cody Peterson
Why do the lights have to go out?
What is happening to the Rural Grocery Store? This project discusses why local grocery stores, and mainly rural grocery stores, are falling ill and closing. Also, why are they important to a rural community? Lastly, what could be done to help prevent this?
A stack of 200 Cans?
Rural independent grocery stores in Nebraska have declined by 30% from 2016 to 2021, according to a report funded by the Center for Rural Affairs and the Nebraska Grocery Industry Association. This stack of cans is in part 140 independent Nebraska stores, representing stores left open, while the other 30% are the closed, and a void of color in the open cans.
Why do we need them?
The closing of stores affects the pervasiveness of food deserts in rural areas. Also, their importance to sustain a local economy: with their closing, it is the first domino to fall for a rural town, a point of no return, with an unlikely economic bounce and further decline. A changing grocery market over the past couple of decades. There are more goods to keep up with, rising costs of meeting minimum transit orders, and big chains getting reduced rates, than the overall inflation of product prices that do not meet the minimum order of the population in many rural towns today. The remedies could be Co-ops, which are being put in place across the Midwest and have received support from local communities, and also, with government programs to set these up and also help fund, it has allowed some stores to still thrive. Here in Nebraska, legislation bill 357 provides funding for technology upgrades, assistance for applying to federal grants, and cooperative buying programs allowing stores to combine wholesale orders with other stores, schools, restaurants, or nursing homes. Overall, this project discusses this solution and looks to educate and present solutions to what might seem like a hopeless situation.