What is Shared Harvest…
Shared Harvest will be a grocery store focused on reasonably priced, healthful, organic, local foods and products. What makes us even more special? Shared Harvest is owned by the community, for the benefit of the community, from the products that we will sell to educational efforts.
The Shared Harvest vision is to open a grocery store cooperative that provides fresh, healthful, food that is primarily organic and locally produced.
Shared Harvest Mission Statement:
Shared Harvest will be cooperatively owned grocery in the heart of Elgin that links consumers to affordable, healthy, locally-produced food, fosters sustainable agriculture, and contributes to the economic and cultural vibrancy of the Elgin community.
Cooperatively owned means the Shared Harvest co-op grocery store will be voluntarily owned and controlled by the people who primarily use it: our owners, who purchase equity shares in the co-op. It will be operated for the benefit of our owners, to meet their mutual needs and values.
By opening a community owned grocery store, Shared Harvest will meet our community’s needs for healthy food, support our local economy, and provide a sustainable community based-alternative to corporate supermarkets. Shared Harvest is a for profit business that was incorporated with the State of Illinois as of December 2012. Rather than rewarding outside investors with its profits, a co-op returns surplus revenue to its members in proportion to how much they use the co-op. This democratic approach to business results in a powerful economic force that benefits the co-op, its members and the communities it serves.
