Jun. 18—TRAVERSE CITY — Someone at some time in the early years of its existence made off with the money pouch from the Oryana Community Co-op.
Housed above a downtown business on Front Street, no one really seems to know what happened to the money. Even though the natural foods store was in its first retail location, things at 123 1/2 W. Front St. operated a little less formally.
All of the employees were volunteers except for manager Dave Poinsett, and he collected a pay day of a $1 an hour for a 60-hour week.
"It was a labor of love," Poinsett recalled. "It was on the edge of collapse for a couple of years."
For a while after the theft, current general manager Steve Nance said members would occasionally buy $5 worth of goods, pay with a $10 and not get any change back.
It's just one of the ways the community kept the co-op grocery store afloat during some of those early days. Whether it was running downstate to a wholesaler for a five-pound bag of beans or rice, unloading a truck or even carrying a block of cheese up a flight of stairs, the community seemed to pitch in to ensure Oryana not only survived, but thrived.
The community, more than 10,000 "owners" and a staff of 200 are still driving Oryana, 50 years after a buying club formed a cooperative grocery store on June 18, 1973.
"All these milestones, all of them happen on the commitment of our staff and owners to keep this co-op going," said Nance, who will end a 14-year run as the GM of Oryana at the end of the year.
"It really has been a stalwart foundational place for the community," said Sally Van Vleck, who has been a member at Oryana since either 1975 or 1976. "We feel the ownership very strongly and help make the big decisions. We all feel a part of it.
"It really is about the community. A lot of people that have been here for a long time feel its importance to the community. But new people coming in recognize it as well."
"I think it's a wonderful piece of the community," said Jackie Shinners, who has been a member since it began as a buyers club. "It serves many, many people in many, many different ways."
Shinners is also credited with the name for Oryana, from the "South American goddess of fertility, harvest and abundance," according to its website.
Conscientious cause
Oryana began as a group of about a dozen families who were interested in eating healthier. These families would make an order from a downstate wholesaler and bring it north.
"The buying clubs up here would make their orders, go down and pick up big bags of beans, rice, bulk cheese and other stuff," Nance said. "Then they would divvy up the orders at the kitchen table. But you would get too much of one item and a little less of others."
Nance said the origins of Oryana were a reaction to the post-World War II processed food. Nance said Oryana, which had Natural Foods in its name for years, was first known as the vegetarian grocery store.
"In the beginning it was about getting access to healthy food," said Van Vleck, who works part-time at Neahtawanta Inn and is also one of the founders of the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council. "We were all waking up to the fact that we wanted to eat healthier and it was the only place to get whole grains and things like that.
"Then the community formed around it because it had some of the same values, a respect for the earth, taking care of each other, living a life of less consumerism and a back to the land movement of farming and environmentalism."
After all, it was the 1970s.
"It (was) collaborations and counter culture and a little like a commune," Nance said. "It was also a political statement to be in charge of our food and the quality of our food."
As much as its members believed in the cause, the co-op had a low-key approach. An article in the Winter 2023 "Fresh Press" quotes the late Linda Henry as saying "it was pretty crummy when we first got there" at 123 1/2 W. Front St. and settled into the 600-square-foot space. "Back then if we brought in $15 or $20 a day, it was a good day," Henry said in the "Fresh Press" article.
Van Vleck recalls it being difficult in some of the early days to have a quorum when the co-op board would meet.
Shinners, who was on the board when Oryana in 1981, said the co-op really started developing when it moved to 601 Randolph St. That continued when Oryana moved into the former Brown Lumber building at 260 E. 10th St.
Oryana, which had sales of $44,000 in the late 1970s, had sales of $370,000 in 1981. The co-op topped $1 million in the late 1980s and $1.5 million a decade later.
"The story of co-ops is a lot of committed people," Nance said. "When we came here we went from a small group and governance processes. We had to get more sophisticated, better grocers and have better governance over this growing community asset."
Nance called Bob Struthers the "zen manager" of Oryana before he "pretended to retire" to the Grain Train in Petoskey.
"Bob is the one I credit because he said you have to be full and abundant," Nance said. "You have to do customer service and you have to get rid of that (15%) surcharge (for non-members)."
Perfect home on 10th
Oryana moved to its current location in 1997. Nance, who followed his wife, Robin in serving six years on the board, said it was tough to find footing at first. Nance said the location didn't have a strong retail presence and "no drive-by traffic."
But just as it did in those early days, Oryana wasn't going anywhere. "The whole staff worked hard to keep it going," Nance said.
Oryana reached $2 million in sales in the early part of the 2000s and hit $7 million near the end of it. Nance took over as GM Jan. 1, 2010 when there was plenty of competition in the natural and organic space, which was claiming many a co-op like Oryana.
"We've been losing co-ops to competition," Nance said. "They were taking the co-op playbook — natural and organic food — but instead of having co-op owners, they were big private equity partnerships or investors from somewhere else expecting a return on investment."
Nance, who came to Oryana from a non-grocery background, said the store started hiring human resources as well as marketing and finance managers in a fast-growing competitive industry.
"It's 2-3 percent net profit if you're doing well," he said. "It's right there with restaurants. And we have a restaurant right in the grocery store to keep it interesting."
Doubling down
Oryana, which was named the Hagerty Small Business of the Year in 2014, was looking to really grow in 2014. With a $500,000 commitment, Oryana was looking at the Williamsburg Dinner Theater.
But something didn't feel right. Nance said he was waking up in the early morning hours. Lucky's Market was coming to Traverse City, Aldi was expanding, Target was adding a much bigger food section and the Acme Meijer was open.
"One of the hardest decisions was going to the board and the community and say, 'We're not going to this thing as this time,'" Nance recalled.
That's part of Steve's legacy for sure," Oryana Marketing and Communications Manager Kirsten Harris said. "I don't know who else would have made that decision and followed their gut."
Even without a second store, Nance said Oryana was able to do $17 million in sales two years in a row in its 8,000-square-foot store.
"The staff were working hard and the owners were very loyal," Nance said. "When competition picked up, we had a couple of slow years but by 2019 we were growing again. That's when we read the tea leaves and listen to the tracks."
While the decision to not expand next to a second Meijer store in the area — which Nance said Oryana has had a synergy with for years — did was position Oryana when Lucky's went into bankruptcy. Oryana bought the TC store — which never closed as one of the highest-performing locations — at a March 26, 2020 bankruptcy auction. Oryana bought the store for $860,000 "essentially the cost of the inventory" in what Nance said was a 13-hour session with 75 attorneys.
"We got a sweet deal on a grocery store The big thing for the co-op was we were able to keep a grocery store on line. We didn't shut down for a day. We also kept 62 jobs. They all stayed and became co-opers."
Located at 3587 Marketplace Circle, the former Lucky's became Oryana West and never closed in what Harris said was an amazing case of logistics.
"Changing signs over night; changing everything from Lucky's to Oryana and not closing the grocery store was no small feat," Harris said.
Oryana closed 2022 with more than $33 million in sales, making Oryana the largest co-op in the state.
"Somehow in this little northern Michigan city we've got here we're the 16th largest grocer on the west side of Michigan and we're also the 16th largest co-op in the nation," Nance said.
"One of the exciting aspects about Oryana is the west-side store didn't cannibalize this store," Harris added. "That speaks to the importance of the co-op to the community. It's not too much co-op for Traverse City."
The second store also allowed Oryana to support twice as many local farmers, producers and other cottage industries. Nance said the co-op board also continues in its mission of education, classes, microloans and donations to charitable organizations.
"When we grow, our local economy grows," said Nance, who said Oryana will often take lower margins for more local. "Farmers have a healthier business model. One of the nice things the west side store did, in addition to being the right thing to do, it doubled the size of our local products."
"Localization is central to our mission," Harris added. "For us that's one of our core points at Oryana."
Nance said Oryana Imagined 2030 has plans for the future developed in 2020. Harris said Oryana will take over Sprout Café in the Cowell Cancer Center. There may be other pop-up locations and possibly even a third location.
For people like Shinners there since the beginning, it's exciting to see not only how far Oryana Community Co-op has come, but where it may be going while all the while staying the course.
"Fifty years starting with a handful of people to such a well-known store is amazing," Shinners said. "That's one of the things that's most important. In 50 years it's continued to serve, expand, serve more people, but stay true to its mission."
