A Word from the General Manager

Hello Cooperators,

I am writing this month's newsletter to report that we are making slow but steady progress with our update to the area of the store that used to be our cafe. Our new coolers have been ordered and are expected to arrive during the week of August 12th. As soon as we can get them set up we will be making a few changes in the locations of many of our products.

The Grab & Go Kitchen items, refrigerated Bakery items, as well as sushi and fresh fish, will be moving to what is now the dairy section of our store. The dairy section will be moved to the old Cafe corner and the Grab & Go section.

These changes will allow us to greatly increase our variety of many products as well as make it easier for us to be in stock on popular items!

Other changes that will go hand in hand with this update and some that should happen before the coolers arrive are as follows:

• Our specialty cheese section will move to the open oval cooler in front of the current Grab & Go section.
• Central Illinois Bakehouse and all other bread will move to our new shelving in the new corner space.
• Refrigerated and frozen vegan items will be in line with the new coolers on the back wall next to our new dairy section.
• Our refrigerated beer section will expand into the current specialty cheese location and will include more cold wine, hard cider, and seltzer drinks.
• Our housemade pizzas will move to the freezer section to be displayed alongside the other pizza options.

We feel these changes will help with making our store more shoppable and alleviate crowding in congested areas, as well as making sure we run out of items much less often.

That said, we would love some input from our owners in regard to items that we currently do not carry in the areas affected by this change. Are there any product lines or varieties of items that we already carry that you do not find at Common Ground but would love to be able to purchase here? If so, please let us know by emailing us at marketing@commonground.coop. If we can get them in here we would love the chance to take care of you better!

Thanks for reading and please take care of yourselves in these hot summer months!

Gary