Keeping the Doors Open at Minnesota’s Rural Grocers

Transcript

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HOST: You're listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, a daily newscast about what it means to live in Minnesota.

ANCHOR: Rural grocery stores are fighting to keep their doors open. Then, a Twin Cities community will have a new place for worship. And, a winter trail returns to the Iron Range.

I'm Chantel SinGs.

Muslims living in the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities will soon have a new mosque. The Lakeville City Council approved the mosque, which will operate in an existing building and can host about 150 people. Muslim residents filled City Hall to support the project, saying the mosque will provide a local place for worship and community service. Some residents raised concerns about parking and traffic, but the mosque will share a 75-space lot with a nearby ice rink. Currently, the nearest mosques for Lakeville residents are about 20 minutes away.

In today's main story, Minnesota's rural grocers are balancing costs in an industry known for its razor-thin profit margins. Britt Aamodt talks to one of these store owners about a program that's trying to help.

Britt Aamodt: Rural grocery stores are lifelines for their communities. But in recent years, Grygla, a small, self-reliant town in Minnesota's Northwest, was about to lose its one and only grocery.

Cheyenne Irlbeck: A farmer took it over and was like, "I need to keep this store open." The next grocery store, it's 40 miles.

Britt Aamodt: Lifelong Grygla resident Cheyenne Irlbeck had started clerking at the store in high school. She was in college getting a degree in business administration, when the farmer took over. She'd come back on holidays to work.

Cheyenne Irlbeck: He had it for two and a half years, whatever, and he was ready for someone who wanted it. That's where I came into the story.

Britt Aamodt: Cheyenne, at only 21 years old, became the new owner of Grygla General Store. According to a 2020 survey undertaken by Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, or RSDP, at the University of Minnesota, nearly half of the state's rural grocers worried about closing in the next five years.

Zachary Paige: People don't want to see their grocery store go away.

Britt Aamodt: Zachary Paige works with the RSDP, which has been helping rural grocery stores like Cheyenne's find the money and the expertise they need to keep going.

Zachary Paige: It's a food source for elders in the community, for people that can't get to that nearest town 30 miles away, people in low-income brackets that can't make that commute.

Britt Aamodt: RSDP doesn't know how many stores have closed since the survey. They're working on an updated one. But Zach says many store owners are feeling the pinch of higher food prices, competition from big box chains and the ongoing challenge of finding enough workers. In some cases, they're one big expense away from a really bad year.

Zachary Paige: Yeah, so grocery is just really hard. It's a 1% profit margin industry.

Britt Aamodt: Cheyenne knows this firsthand.

Cheyenne Irlbeck: My store operates on a very small margin. And a cooler goes down, a freezer goes down, and you're looking at so much money out of pocket. And to be honest, I don't have that money, because it's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Britt Aamodt: RSDP is there to assist with finding loans and grants. It also offers, among other things, guidance in produce handling, marketing, finance and—

Zachary Paige: If someone's just starting out, there's a few training online courses for new store owners.

Britt Aamodt: Cheyenne Irlbeck got a crash course in store ownership four years ago. Her Grygla General Store is a century-old building. Electricity alone costs $70 or more a day, and there's limited space. But she manages to carry the staples and a little of a lot of things. What makes this rural store work is that she's committed to it, and so are her customers.

Cheyenne Irlbeck: A lot of people will say like, "Well, if it's not at the General Store, you don't need it. And I think that's hilarious, because they're patrons, and they're just being so loyal to me. But I just keep expanding and making sure that I can give everybody everything they need."

Britt Aamodt: This is Britt Aamodt for North Star Stories.

Anchor: You are listening to North Star Stories.

A free, multi-use winter trail will return this year at the Virginia Golf Course on the Mesabi Iron Range in Northern Minnesota. The trail offers cross-country skiing, skijoring, fat biking, and snowshoeing to the public. The Winter for All Trail debuted last season and is maintained and prepared by volunteers from Mesabi Recreation. The Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability supports the project with local organizations, businesses, and the city of Virginia.

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HOST: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota. Online at ampers dot org.