Weaver Street Market

Ruffin Slater is an unlikely grocery entrepreneur. He was a history major at Duke University looking for “meaningful” work after graduation when he got a part-time job at the Durham Food Co-op. “I just happened to like it because it was a good combination of very tactile, physical labor— stacking shelves, whatever—and also a lot of interaction with people.” He and his two partners began to imagine what a more ambitious cooperative could become. “The principal idea at the beginning was to take the concepts we believed in that weren’t being executed [at the Durham Co-op] and to look at a way to have a bigger impact on the community. We wanted the best food possible and a community-owned business model.”

When Weaver Street Market first opened, it occupied just a small part of a building in front of the Carr Mill Mall. “We had an intuitive sense that we wanted to be in the heart of downtown. We weren’t at all interested in a strip mall. This goes to the type of interactions, the stimulating and interesting work environment, we were looking for. ‘Let’s be in an interesting place in the middle of things that could engender casual interactions that could organically create an experience they would like.’”

The co-op started with only 250 members, and it took all kinds of grassroots organizing—street fairs, mailing-list swaps, and word of mouth—to sign them up. The small membership meant that fees, $75-135 per household, covered only a tiny portion of the $500,000 needed for start up. The rest of the capital had to come from borrowing. Two dozen of the members were willing to loan $5,000-10,000 each. Ruffin then leveraged that capital for loans from the recently opened Self-Help Credit Union in Durham, and from a municipal revitalization program.

It took 10 years for Weaver Street to expand beyond the grocery business. “One of the breakthroughs was that the board of directors saw opportunities to impact the community besides selling natural food. The traditional growth path of a co-op, a Whole Foods Market or most food businesses is product driven. Our thought process was a bit different. What is it, we asked, that we can bring to the community, and what is it that the community wants or needs that a co-op community can provide?”

“That logic,” Ruffin continues, “led to the restaurant. It led us to the housing co-op. To the community radio station. Even within food, it has led us into opening a bakery, making our own prepared foods, partnering with farmers to organize a chicken processing plant.”

Some of these entities became legally independent of the co-op. Because of broadcasting law, the public radio station has to be a separate nonprofit. The housing co-op also became an independent nonprofit so that it could go after foundation grants. “Weaver Street incubated them. We’re still involved, but primarily through representatives on their boards. We also subsidize them with space and free rent so they can focus on operations.”

Despite the proliferation of businesses, Ruffin still sees value in some specialization. “The most important things we’re doing are still around food. That’s what we’re best at, where we have some economy of scale, where we have the most experience. Our radio and housing businesses are successful, but not nearly as impactful or successful as food.”