Season 1 Ep. 18: Rural grocery stores and the rise of the dollar store

In a previous episode, we discussed the importance of rural grocery stores. Kathy Draeger, the statewide Director of the Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships at the University of Minnesota,  discussed their discussed their recently published report outlining results from a survey they sent to rural grocery stores  across Minnesota.

For this episode, we brought her back to dive a bit deeper into a specific issue related to the future of rural grocery stores; the rise of the dollar store. We were also joined by Monica Jarvi, PHD candidate with Dept of Sociology at the U of MN.

In this conversation we discuss the strategies used by these dollar store-type business that has made them so successful, how communities can better support their local businesses, how our resources need to be shifted towards business retention and not necessarily creation, and how the closing of a school led to the expansion of a hardware store and the creation of a new grocery store, liquor store, and coffee shop for one community.

To read their full report on the survey results, click here.