Rural independent grocery stores are closing fast. We train the specialists, and the grocers, who can turn that around.
Strong Roots.
Strong Futures.
The mission
Rural independent grocery stores are closing at a rate that will leave a generation of towns without a place to buy food. We train the people who can change that, and build the tools that help them do it.
For specialists
Each level opens only to graduates of the level before it. Start where you are.
Offered by K-State's Rural Grocery Initiative. The prerequisite for everything that follows.
Twelve weeks on valuation, profitability, and the psychology of identity transition.
Bi-weekly case work with other specialists, open to Level 1 graduates and up.
Train graduates to teach the levels below them. Coming soon.
Carly Whorton · Founder
For grocers
Healthy Bucket shows how your pricing and labor are actually performing against your revenue, while you can still do something about it, plus a twice-monthly community of independent grocers working the same problems.
Join the Healthy Bucket list→Meet the founder
Carly co-founded Cecil K's Hometown Market in Holton, Kansas in 2017 with no prior grocery background, navigated it through the 2020 pandemic, opened a second location in 2022, and managed her own exit at the end of 2023. Since 2022 she has been the architect and lead facilitator of the Rural Grocery Transition Specialist program, the only national training program dedicated to rural grocery succession support.
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