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Community Mercantile overcomes competition, survives to see 25th year
Julie Waters, Lawrence resident, arranges flower bouquets fresh from local farms. Produce you can eat — herbs, berries, vegetables, eggs and meats — also arrives weekly from the Rolling Prairie Farms Alliance, a local group of ornamental farmers.
C
ampbell's soup isn't sold at this grocery store. Neither is Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.
For 25 years, The Community Mercantile, or the Merc, has catered to more selective diets with foods such as hormone-free milk, baked organic cookies and lactose-free cheese.
Talk to the long-time employees of the Merc, 901 Mississippi St., and it becomes apparent that, as the store celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, they are not only pleased with its thriving business, but also thrilled just to be in open.
Before the Wild Oats Market closed in 1996, the Merc had struggled to compete with the chain's lower prices on the same types of goods.
"If Wild Oats had held on just a little longer, we might have been the ones to fold," said Mike Rundle, who has worked at the Merc since its birth and is now its membership coordinator. Rundle said that unusually loyal patronage and employee dedication were crucial to keeping the Merc's doors open.
"A lot of staff took pay cuts or took on more responsibilities and our members supported an increase in dues
from $10 to $75 a year," Rundle said.
"The first store at 615 Massachusetts was a rough-hewn, hippie-atmosphere place that functioned by volunteers." Rundle said. "To shop you had to volunteer, and everything was done by consensus."
While anyone can shop at the store, dues-paying members accumulate "points" as they shop and then receive a proportionate share of the store's surplus every year.
The Mere's current cooperative system has evolved from the one started in 1974.
Eventually a board was formed along with the Community Mercantile Credit Union, and the store moved to its present location at 9th and Mississippi streets, allowing it to more than double the size of its business.
The Merc continues to expand its services with programs such as the Rolling Prarie Farmers Alliance. The Alliance runs an organic subscription service from which customers can order specific produce and beef products to be picked up the following week.
The service runs every Monday from 4 to 7 p.m., May through October.
"I look at those vegetables," said Alliance coordinator
Wayne White, pointing to the heaps of subscriptions ready for pick-up. "They're greener, more appetizing and tastier than anything you'll find in the supermarket produce aisle. And we're all people with a social conscience doing this. It's not primarily a money-making thing."
This year, the Merc is saying thank-you to the community with monthly give-aways to celebrate the anniversary. KLWN (1320 AM) will broadcast live this Friday from the Merc deli, with the Merc mascot, "Captain Carrot." Those who spot the carrot can call the radio station to win prizes, including cordless phones, tickets to Lied Center shows and dinner for two at various restaurants.
The festivities will culminate Oct. 25 with a community party at Liberty Hall featuring blues artist Kelley Hunt. The concert will reunite its founders and the people that helped make the community cooperative a success.
The store's commitment to the community is reflected in one of its first slogans, "For people, not for profit," said Chuck Magerl, who managed the Merc from 1976 to 1986. Magerl, who now owns Free State Brewery, said that food stores in Lawrence during the '70s didn't offer specialty foods, such as organic products.
"To get specialty products, we had to band together to buy from wholesalers," Magerl said. "A lot of it was a grass-roots desire to provide food to people in a way that wasn't being served by local supermarkets."
The Merc has continued to evolve since then, offering new outreach services, such as Nutrition Education, run by Lawrence resident Nancy O'Connor.
"I go to schools and give free presentations with snacks for the whole class," O'Connor said. "I do things like teach them how to make soda so they know what's actually in it and what they're spending their money on."
The Mrc works with both local and out-of-state suppliers to supply organic and other specialty foods. Cooperating with local suppliers - such as the Farmers Alliance - both lowers prices and increases farmers profits by cutting out middle-man distributors.
Because organically-grown foods and products such as lactose-free cheese or hormone-free milk are more labor intensive and have smaller productions, goods at the Merc tend to cost more. Rundle said. But customers are apparently willing to bear the extra cost.
"I like supporting local farmers and the quality of the food is worth the cost," said Amamda Kruenegel, Leawood senior. "I've read a lot about the chemicals that are used on crops and the stuff I buy here is definitely better for you."
Organic fare
The term organic is only as good as the certification agency that oversees farms.The standards followed by the Rolling Prairie Farmers Alliance include:
- no synthetic fertilizers
- no herbicides or pesticides
- only moderate use of rotano, a natural pesticide that can be toxic if overused
manures composted for at least a year to eliminate bacteria (manure that stinks has bacteria)
using only soil that has been free from said elements for more than a year with meat and dairy products, using no hormones or antibiotics, which may yield resistant strains of bacteria, such as salmonella.