The big picture
With $500,000 in federal pandemic relief dollars, the city partnered with the east side community health organization Go Austin/Vamos Austin to establish the city's first community-owned food retailer. The initiative was planned to address food insecurity and lacking access around Austin's Eastern Crescent, where amenities like health care centers and healthy food retailers are more limited.
The area is home to higher "low-access, low-income" populations in places formerly known as food deserts where options like grocery stores are spread thin. A large share of Travis County ZIP codes without grocers are located to the east, and many of the more than 10% of food-insecure county residents live in those areas as well.
Since City Council voted to advance the co-op plan in summer 2022, the city, GAVA and the Austin Cooperative Business Association have been moving closer to opening the grocery co-op's doors. That process has involved forming a steering committee, getting community feedback and completing feasibility reviews for the project—now officially called the Del Valle Food Co-op.
So far, the steering committee has come up with a food retail business plan and held public sessions to share information and recruit supporters. Carlos Soto, a spokesperson for the city Economic Development Department, described the pilot as a "small-scale bodega" that'll open in the first half of 2025.
Zooming in
About 360 area residents are now on board as pledged members of the project, surpassing an initial goal of 300 people, and more are expected in the months ahead. Anyone interested can sign up here.
Those members also elected the project's first board of directors this fall. The board features "lifelong Del Valle residents, food access community service workers, industry experts, and community minded leaders," according to ACBA Executive Director Drew De Los Santos, and will oversee the pilot and planning for a larger grocery store.
Soto said that board is getting more preparation this fall as the business moves toward formal incorporation and a physical location on the east side is selected.
"The focus for the next six months is on training the board, launching the pilot in Del Valle and continuing to recruit pledged members," he said.
Almost 40% of the co-op pilot's $524,000 budget has been spent so far on organizing, recruiting, consultants and planning, with $200,000 reserved for operational costs for the pilot program's launch.
De Los Santos said the co-op team expects up to four staff members will also need to be hired by next spring to manage the pilot, with further hiring depending on sales and potential grant funding.
