Prairie Food Co-op, county’s first community-owned grocer, opens in Lombard
Kathy and Jerry Nash will forever remember July 9.
An 11 a.m. ribbon cutting Wednesday will commemorate their long journey to create the Prairie Food Co-op, DuPage County’s first community-owned grocery store, located in Lombard’s Eastgate Shopping Center, 837 S. Westmore-Meyers Road.
“We’ve been working very hard for 13 years,” said Jerry Nash, with his wife the co-founder of the roughly 8,000-square-foot store between Ace Hardware and the Secretary of State facility.
“It has been a community-wide effort, also,” said Jerry Nash, 53, the company’s director of marketing and outreach. “We have been fortunate enough to attract many dedicated, passionate people over the years, whether they be on the board or one of our many committees.”
A full-service grocery store, Prairie Food Co-op’s focus is on sustainable, ethically produced foods locally or regionally sourced. Produce, dairy items, baked goods, wellness products, and grocery items such as sauces, coffee and greens all are produced in Illinois, some right in Lombard.
They’ll have to widen their net on certain items. As Kathy Nash told the Daily Herald, “People still want to buy citrus and bananas all year round.”
A varied selection of craft beer and spirit purveyors includes Tighthead from Mundelein, Alter from Downers Grove, and Standard Meadery from Villa Park.
“It’s owned by the community, so it better reflects our community,” Jerry Nash said.
Prairie Food Co-op has nearly 2,500 owners who each contributed $200 shares. They live in Lombard, Glen Ellyn, Downers Grove, Villa Park and neighboring communities.
While the owners do get some perks, such as a monthly shopping trip at 10% off and the right to vote for and pursue board positions, Nash stressed “anyone and everyone” can shop at Prairie Food.
“You do not have to be an owner to shop in the co-op, you don’t have to volunteer. Those are kind of the older models in food co-ops. We want everybody in our community to shop in our co-op,” Nash said.
The Nashes did both volunteer and shop in a co-op, Common Ground in Urbana, where they met as students at the University of Illinois.
Seeing that store grow from a space in a church basement to a storefront to a for-profit “beautiful store,” Jerry Nash said, inspired the couple to create a similar business after they moved to Lombard in 2009 and found nothing like it in the area.
Since they embarked on the concept more than a decade ago, they’ve raised community support through many meetings “to prove that we’re not just some well-meaning hippies.”
They’ve studied market trends, gone through the municipal approvals, weathered COVID and supply chain delays, and seen construction, material and real estate costs increase fourfold, Jerry Nash said.
The company raised the $4 million needed to open and staff the store, which at maturity will employ 40 to 50 people, through state and federal grants, investments and loans from store owners.
After a national search, Prairie Food also named a board president, Leslee Keri.
“It’s a powerful example of what’s possible when neighbors come together to build something meaningful,” Keri said in a news release.
Jerry Nash said the couple chose not to take shortcuts to open a store “that wasn’t positioned as well for success.”
“We feel like we’ve done that now,” he said. “I’m very relieved and in awe at what our community has done. While I will still be involved for the near future, I can’t wait to simply be able to shop at the store and see my friends and neighbors in the aisles.”