Google Maps photo from November 2015 of the Stone Valley Community Market.
Vermont Business Magazine Stone Valley Community Market, a natural- and organic-foods cooperative in Poultney, has decided to dissolve in view of operating losses and a heavy debt load, according to a press release dated February 22. At a meeting last Thursday evening, members of the cooperative voted to approve the co-op board's recommendation to dissolve and liquidate the co-op's remaining assets.
Organized as a nonprofit corporation, the market opened for business in 2011, selling predominantly organic foods at its storefront location on Poultney's Main Street. In recent years the store had grappled with shrinking membership, declining sales, and a debt load which ultimately proved insurmountable.
At a meeting last November, the board's recommendation to dissolve fell well short of the two-thirds majority of votes needed for approval. That board resigned en masse and a new board took over but proved unable to meet the ongoing challenges of refashioning operations so as to put the store on a sound financial footing. Store operations ceased in November, except for two “pop-up” openings shortly before Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Much of the store's patronage came from students and staff at Green Mountain College, which owns the store's building. The college's January 23 announcement that it expected to close down at the end of the current semester immediately cast a cloud over the remaining prospects for reopening the store.
A further blow followed when the college administration decided abruptly to deny the co-op a $10,000 grant that the college's students had voted to award from a fund financed by student fees. The co-op had viewed the grant as crucial to its survival. In response to a co-op member's inquiry, the college, whose debts exceed $22 million, explained that it was “managing its financial resources so as to meet existing obligations and to best serve the needs of its current students.”
A GoFundMe appeal, launched in December with a goal of $20,000, meanwhile garnered only about $1,000.
According to the plan of dissolution presented to the membership, the co-op will liquidate its store equipment and remaining inventory. That will cover only a portion of the co-op's debts, however. The board of managers anticipates that the process will take at least several months.
In closing, the co-op by one count becomes the seventh business on Poultney's Main Street to terminate operations in approximately the last three years.
Source: Stone Valley Community Market 2.22.2019