By Jewel Pickert

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When Matt Malecha, General Manager of Spiral Food Co-op, was hired five years ago, it was already evident they would need to expand from their 1,872 square-foot facility.

Matt said they didn’t start looking seriously until two years ago. The market study indicated the current building, including the old MGM Warehouse space, as one option. The current Spiral Food Co-op space, plus the now vacant facility next door, totals 5,000 square feet.

You can find the proposed floor plan on one of Spiral Food’s windows.

Spiral Food Co-op opened in 1979 and occupied a few locations in town before moving to its present location in 2011.

Increased sales was the primary driver for expanding.

In line with those plans, Vicki Scott was hired in January, 2020, as the Marketing Manager. Previously, she had worked at Just Food Coop in Northfield.

Spiral Food Co-op is the new name for the Hastings co-op. They had planned to roll out the new name along with the expansion plans in February, 2020. But after COVID-19 hit, they were too busy adjusting to the new protocols to tend to the marketing campaign. And then, the timing didn’t seem right either.

Then, at the end of August, they mailed out letters to their members to alert them to the capital campaign.

Spiral Food Co-op has “joined forces with National Co+op Grocers (NCG).” NCG is the umbrella organization over all the co-ops. They provide help with advertising, pricing, promotions, and other business-related expenses.

The total project cost is $2.1 million. Matt said they have at least $20,000 now with more coming in.

Now was a great time to get the facility at a reasonable price with a low interest rate. Since Hastings is classified as a rural community, they qualified for a USDA loan as well.

Spiral Food Co-op’s capital campaign is to raise $500,000 from the community.

Keep in mind that anyone can shop at the co-op. You don’t have to be a member. And anyone can donate to the capital campaign.

If interested in becoming a member, you would need to live in Minnesota and pay a one-time $100 fee. You would get a first time 10% discount, coupons, and a shirt or bag. You would also be able to get preferred shares or a member loan.

Preferred shares would be an investment in the co-op. Spiral Food Co-op could pay dividends in the future.

A member loan would be a loan to the co-op. The term of the note is ten years; although, they could do a longer time period.

You can get details for either option at Spiral Food Co-op.

With the larger floor space, the co-op plans to expand their options; although, Matt said you won’t find an entire aisle of tomato paste.