A formerly closed East Lansing food co-op is reopening this week. The shop is opening at a new location in Lansing with a slight name change.
Now known as the Eastside Lansing Food Co-op, or ELFCO, the store soft opened at Allen Place on Wednesday. General manager Sally Potter since opening, she’s already seen a lot of excitement and interest from the community.
“The enthusiasm we’ve had so far … has been tremendous,” she said, “I mean, we have reunions of people, and inside the store we have big hugs from people by the coffee, and then we have people in the neighborhood come in and just, they’re looking around saying ‘woah this is in my neighborhood.'”
The store had previously closed in 2017. Potter attributes the comeback of the once named East Lansing Food Co-op on the persistence of the store’s board members to reopen.
“When the old store closed, ELFCO didn’t stop, the board kept meeting and then finally when this space was available the board was ready,” she said.
Potter praised the new location, on 1605 E. Kalamazoo St., for having enough space for shoppers to peruse aisles and see art from local artists on display.
She called the produce “stunning” and mentioned the store has seen trucks coming and going delivering fresh groceries to the store nearly everyday.
“This [store] has a full line of hard goods, of grocery items, and also dairy and frozen and fresh foods, and that’s really the important part of this version of ELFCO is we’re buying food directly from farmers from the neighborhood.”
Potter said the mission of ELFCO is to improve the accessibility of food in neighborhoods without grocery stores. She adds ELFCO isn't hoping for anything with its new location other than trying to ensure they have enough resources and situations that compels the community to "hang onto" them for the long term.
Potter says anyone can shop at ELFCO but those interested in memberships can join for $30 a year. Memberships from the previous store that closed in 2017 are still valid.
An official grand opening will be held Oct. 7 at 9 a.m.
