The sign is now up on the outside of the building for the future location of SunCoast Market Co-op in Imperial Beach.
It's a project that’s been a long time in the making.
“We have been organizing as residents for many, many years now because we wanted better access to healthy food in our community,” said the market's board president Kim Rivero Frank.
She said there are limited grocery store options in Imperial Beach, and she’s one of the many residents who shop for groceries out of town.
"We wanted to create a store that would be welcoming to everyone, that would really reflect our community needs," Rivero Frank said.
She said SunCoast Market will help with that problem. It’s owned by the community and decisions are made locally.
“People have the opportunity to join the co-op. It's a $200 one-time share purchase. When the store opens, anyone can shop there, but as owners we get special perks so we’ll get things like weekly owner coupons,” she said.
The full-service grocery store will offer locally grown produce as well as natural and organic foods.
So far, there are over 1,300 community owners, including Imperial Beach resident Mel Lions.
"I have to leave Imperial Beach to go get groceries. So only one of the reasons I use a car is to go get my food, so this is going to fix that," he said.
Lions is also the founder of the former Wild Willow Farm & Education Center in the Tijuana River Valley.
"I'm a big supporter of locally grown food,” Lions said. “There's more small farms in San Diego County than any county in the United States, but we don't know where they, are and we are not eating their foods. So there's production means and distribution means that are now setting up in order to do that.”
San Diego State University Professor of Marketing Iana Castro is a consumer behavior researcher and retailing expert, who specializes in food insecurity.
She said opening the first community-owned grocery store in San Diego’s South Bay is a great first step — but there are two other areas the market will need to focus on to be beneficial to all residents.
“The things they're really going to have to think about is what is the right mix of products and what is the right pricing for the co-op,” Castro said.
Rivero Frank said they're trying to make the store affordable. She said they're accepting CalFresh benefits, and members on food assistance programs will get an additional 10% discount.
SunCoast Market Co-op is in the final stages of construction. All in, Rivero Frank said it's a $3.9 million project, and they need to fundraise an additional $300,000 before opening this fall.
