Site In-sight

The old saw is that “no news is good news.” But in our case, the bad news is that there is no good news. The Finance and Development Committee (Robin Arcus, Michael Bacon, Brand Fortner, Nick Fox, Drew Peng, Lori Pistor and Diane Standaert) continues to search for a commercial loan. Banks continue to say no. The committee continues to search for alternative financing. And we continue to look at choices for alternative locations.

In a typical business, one or two people own a substantial portion of the business and will personally guarantee the loan. That helps the bank take more risk, if the business owner has liquid assets to pledge. Each of our owners owns one—and only one—share. We need someone to step up and guarantee a loan, someone who believes in the market and in our business model.

The other advice we get from bankers, over and over, is to find a ‘lesser’ location (smaller/cheaper), open a store and run it for three to five years. Then—with a positive record of operations—banks will more closely consider a large loan.

Ruffin Slater, over at Weaver Street Market, suggests creating a smaller store that focuses on perishables—the perimeter of the store. In such a store there would be a focus on produce, meat, seafood, cheeses and deli items, with a substantially smaller selection of processed foods. The advantage of a product mix like that is that it’s very hard for small stores to differentiate on packaged foods, and the bigger operations have a much more favorable cost structure. They can differentiate through lower prices.

In such a layout, for example, we might offer one extra virgin olive oil at a great price, rather than a large variety of olive oils at regular retail.
On the perimeter, with perishables, we can differentiate with information, service and selection. We can use small farmers and local producers that simply don’t raise enough for the big box stores. We can work with Weaver Street to offer their fabulous bakery products, deli items and meats & seafood. We might have an excellent bulk herb and spice selection.

Word is that discussion of alternatives to the 10,000 square foot store on Mangum Street will be on the agenda for the annual meeting. That’s also the occasion, of course, when you elect board members who will be making these decisions. It’s a meeting you don’t want to miss!

Don Moffitt
Project Manager
don@durhamcentralmarket.org

Creative Food Drive

Volunteers on the DCM Marketing Staff are excited to participate in the Creative Food Drive for The Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC at Durham, and we need your help to collect and purchase at least $500 worth of non-perishable food items.
 
Sponsored by MHA Works, a local architecture firm, the Creative Food Drive is a charitable competition being held on Saturday, October 15, from 2-6:00 pm, at the Durham Farmers’ Market pavilion. The goal is to collect as much food as possible for the Food Bank to help them alleviate hunger in our state. The friendly competition will be for our team to build a sculpture out of the food items we collect and see how ours stacks up against the other teams’ creations. Basic, nutritious staples in boxes, bags and cans would be ideal.
 
We are confident we will bring a lot of creativity as well as food to the table, and are already working on design ideas. Please drop off donations at the DMC table at the Farmers’ Market on 9/10 from 8am-12pm, or contact DMC volunteer Heather Tunnell at heather@durhamcentralmarket.org to make other arrangements.
 
You can read more about the event here at http://www.mhaworks.com/page/newsevents
 
Thank you in advance for your generous support of our efforts to help The Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC at Durham, and we hope to see you at the competition!
 

A Reminder

If you are interested in being considered for the Durham Central Market board of directors now is the time to request your application packet.

The deadline for submitting completed applications is midnight, Thursday, September 15, 2011

Request your application by emailing: robin@durhamcentralmarket.org

Thank you for your support!

www.DurhamCentralMarket.org