After years of living in a food desert and having to travel miles away for food, residents in North Flint, Michigan, can shop for fresh produce and groceries while supporting members of the predominantly Black community, thanks to the recently opened North Flint Food Market Cooperative.
The North Flint Food Market Cooperative (NFFM) is Flint’s first cooperative grocery. Unlike traditional grocery stores, which are run by corporations, NFFM is a co-op owned by approximately 900 community members who have invested in the store.
“For over a decade, we wandered in the wilderness hoping for what many communities take for granted: access to healthy food, job and career opportunities, and business ownership and control of one’s destiny,” Rev. Dr. Reginald Flynn, the co-owner and executive director of North Flint Food Market, told WNEM.
“We’ve had a food desert,” Board President Brigitte Brown Jackson added. “Kroger’s left. Meijer’s left this side of town. So, the Clio Pierson Road corridor has not had the functionality we needed to have for our people.”
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Located at 5402 Clio Road in Flint, Flynn says the new grocery store was over ten years in the making, with the group having to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, higher-than-expected equipment costs, funding struggles, and more. Now that its doors are open, Flynn describes it as “a moment of pride for our community. “This is Ujamaa — cooperative economics — in action. We own it,” said Flynn per Flint Courier News.
“After 11 years in here and nothing, I thought it’s never going to open,” customer Sandra Emery told reporters. “It was just uplifting to be able to get in here and see it for myself. And I will be shopping here from now on.”
“We needed this store,” another shopper, Iris Hart, added.“And I praise God and thank God that we finally made it.”
In addition to providing residents with access to affordable, healthy foods nearby, the NFFM aims to create career opportunities for residents living in nearby neighborhoods through its employment and job training programs. Similarly, in line with the concept of community ownership, anyone can apply to join North Flint Market Co-op by paying a one-time membership fee.
“Let me be unequivocally clear. This store is much more than a place to buy groceries. I learned… during this journey that this cooperative movement has become a divine place of the restoration of hope, pride and dignity,” the co-owner and executive director told M Live. “It has become an inspiring place of the resurrection of our capacity to unite for the collective good of our community. It has become a place of hope.”
“This is a movement of cooperation with people who have historically been excluded from the economy. Now they feel that they have a sense of ownership and pride and dignity having owned what they desire,” he continued.
The North Flint Michigan Market is open every day from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m.
