WHITEWATER — Whitewater's grocery cooperative group formed in 2017 to open a community-owned store after the city's only supermarket closed. The grocery co-op store has still not opened.
"The Gro-Co has probably looked at about 50 different locations in one way or another," said Whitewater Grocery Co. president Brian Schanen.
Although a store has not opened after a decade of searching, the grocery co-op group still has nearly a thousand paying members who believe in the mission.
Brienne Brown, who helped start both the grocery co-op group and the weekly Whitewater City Market, said the community was starving for options after Sentry Foods left the city in 2017. Its closure left Walmart as the only major grocery option in Whitewater at the time.
"Three months after the city market started, Sentry said they were shutting down and they were going to be gone in a month," Brown said. "A lot of people were upset because we have this amazing vibrant farmers market. People are doing great and obviously people want to spend money on good food."
The Whitewater City Market continues to be a weekly tradition, but the future Whitewater Grocery Co. store location remains uncertain.
Schanen said it is difficult to both find a space which can fit a small grocery store and do so at an affordable price.
"If we compare new construction in 2017 when this started to today, that cost has doubled," Schanen said. "When you're working on a community-owned grocery store, you have to be extremely frugal with your resources."
The grocery store landscape in Whitewater has also changed since the co-op's formation. An Aldi opened next to the Walmart in 2024, and city council recently approved a plan for a possible Piggly Wiggly next to the Kwik Trip on Highway 12 Business.
"I think we still have a role here, we just have to redefine it a little bit," Brown said.
Whitewater grocery co-op members will meet on Aug. 12 to determine how the group moves forward from here.
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