Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Fisher.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
All I wanted was a Clif Bar! In 2013 I was an avid backpacker in my college years and was on the lookout for the best flavor of granola bar – which is blueberry crisp in case you didn’t know! My friend told me that I had to go to GreenTree Cooperative Grocery downtown to get not only bars but use their bulk foods section to make my own custom trail mix for an upcoming canoe trip. I had no idea what a co-op was, but ‘grocery store’ rang true and ‘custom trail mix’ was enough to get me in the doors of the cutest little grocery shop around town. After creating a dried fruit-heavy mixture of pure delightful trail mix, at checkout I was told all about what a co-op was – a community owned store existing for the community and not for profit. I was also told they were hiring which struck a chord with me as I was graduating that December and couldn’t work at the rock-climbing wall on campus as a graduate.
I started as a Storekeeper which is someone who did a little of everything from washing deli and bakery dishes, to receiving and stocking trucks and deliveries, to general cleaning, to cashiering. From there I became the Wellness Buyer doing all of those previous things to a lesser degree as well as buying for health and beauty as well as supplements, bulk herbs and spices, and general merchandise. I took over as the Grocery Buyer not too long after that role buying for dry grocery, refrigerated, and bread, in addition to wellness.
As I was just starting in my co-op journey, GreenTree had been looking to move to a larger location, and we finally secured a site still located in downtown Mt. Pleasant, which was a key factor we heard from our shoppers and co-op owners if we were to move and expand. We started the hard work of moving locations and expanding to a new build five times larger than our existing building in 2019.
You can imagine 2020’s COVID pandemic brought a lot of confusion, delays in grocery products as in building materials, and a lot of extra hard work to get our staff through safely while continuing to provide essential services of a grocery store to our shoppers and local community. It all paid off in December 2021 when we made the final move to 410 W. Broadway St. Ste A, Mt. Pleasant, MI! Seeing the level of excitement and juts how supportive our community was for GreenTree at our soft and grand openings made the long struggles and difficult patches seem worth it! GreenTree hit record sales and has continued growing sales ever since.
In 2024, our long-term General Manager moved up north and the Board of Directors of GreenTree hired me into the position that April. Overseeing a complex store with intricate interlocking mechanisms like labor and sales, or balancing staff, store, and customer needs has been both nerve wracking and challenging and yet so exhilarating in the year since I took over as General Manager. I have a very supportive and keen leadership team made up of department managers and the store’s staff have always been a highlight in coming to work each day to serve our community just really good food! GreenTree has existed since 1970 for the community of Mt. Pleasant, and I am so glad to be able to be a part of the co-op as we embrace the next 50 years!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Running a conventional grocery store means small margins and high labor. Running a grocery store that’s mission is not profit, but community focused, supportive, and on the track to support local and sustainable are additional layers that make the work harder, but so much more rewarding it’s not comparable.
GreenTree Co-op was located in a small building that had been apartments before the Co-op took over the entire building many decades ago. It wasn’t until 1983 that the Co-op made the move to go from a pay phone to a private land line! When I started, the floors were uneven, and the coolers broke down more often than they should. I learned how to clear condensation drains and where to put the buckets in the attic when it rained hard enough to catch drips. This was all part of the Co-op’s strong charm though and it created a wonderful atmosphere of hard work and lasting memories of the fantastic coworkers and shoppers I would see every day in the store for lunch, grocery shopping, and the best breakfast burritos around!
GreenTree has had tough times making ends meet in the last decade or two as we struggled to make our physically limiting smaller location profitable enough to cover day-to-day costs as well as save for expansion and relocation. During relocation plans in 2020, we were dealing with the COVID pandemic where uncertainty reigned, government orders for businesses changed at the drop of a hat, staff were scared to come to work, and not all customers were kind. We got through it though as a strong staff and continued to bring food to our community through the pandemic’s entirety. As an independent food co-op, we were able to pivot to new vendors when items in high demand were out of stock from our typical vendors and warehouses and we leaned hard on local supply chains and local vendors for everything from fresh produce to fresh meat, to bulk flour, to toilet paper.
I believe that our emphasis on local suppliers, our incredibly dedicated staff, and the support of our shoppers were the reasons why we came through that time stronger than ever and in a great position to embrace the full relocation and expansion of GreenTree Co-op in 2021.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about GreenTree Co-op Market?
A food co-op, like GreenTree Co-op Market, is a grocery store owned by folks in their community! Unlike corporate chains, food co-ops are independent and owned by their shoppers. Instead of focusing on investors, food coops focus on their community — nourishing everyone according to their budget and cooking style. Cooperatives are member-owned, member-governed businesses that operate for the benefit of their owners according to common principles agreed upon by the international cooperative community. Owners pool resources to bring economic results that are unobtainable by one person alone. A cooperative is a business; voluntarily owned by those who use it and operated for the benefit of its owners. In a society of big box grocery stores, co-ops offer community members a say in what and how they eat. Co-ops disrupt corporate food models by sharing store ownership with the community since stores are owned by the shoppers, not entities disengaged with the local community.
GreenTree is a community owned grocery cooperative selling everything from fresh fruits and vegetables, house-made deli and bakery items, frozen, bread, dry grocery, meat and seafood, body care, supplements, and household goods. As a 55 year old downtown business, we strive to support our local supply chain with stable and fair market prices for our local farmers and producers. Emphasizing good-for-you products we offer a wide-range of dietary needs goods like gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, organic, non-MO/bio-engineered, and more aiming to get good food into the hands of the community we serve!
Our main shopper is anyone who eats! Our typical shoppers tend to buy both meals on the go from our in-house deli and bakery, but also stock up on groceries for the week for their households. We pay attention and encourage customer feedback in many avenues to help us get the products the community is looking for on the shelves. We are very receptive to the community’s wants and needs and appreciate their long-term support of the Co-op and their patronage with the store.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
In an industry with razor margins, groceries have never been completely stable. A multitude of
factors play integral parts in every step along the way from the seeds framers plant, the weather,
and the soil, to processing labor, to shipping and warehouse constraints, to global climate change
impacts, to stocking and staying abreast of shopper habits and trends! In the most recent years
we’ve seen big impacts on farm labor shortages where as well as wild fire smoke impacting
trucking and deliveries from the northwest mainly. These are factors that aren’t anywhere near in
our control, but we do watch them closely and pivot to secondary and tertiary warehouses and
suppliers, striving to keep groceries customers want and need on the shelves. We first always
look to local suppliers even if it means cold calling farmers an asking existing local farmers if they
know anyone growing x, y, or z that would be willing to start a retail relationship with GreenTree.
We ask sister Co-ops around Michigan in the spirit of cooperation if they know of any suppliers or
support for these products as well. Even though GreenTree is independent, we have those co-op
connections and the willingness to see one another succeed. Through suppliers, growers,
publications, news sites, and even podcasts we are well informed of broad changes to the supply
chains that can quite quickly affect the store in many ways!
Pricing:
- Co-op Ownership is a total of $210.00 which can be paid as $30/year over seven years
Contact Info:
- Website: https://greentree.coop/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greentree_coop/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greentreecoop
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/green-tree-co-op-market-mount-pleasant
