The closure of Heartland Market’s locations in Manson and Rockwell City at the end of 2019 made most of Calhoun County a food desert, leaving the entire county with only one grocery store in Lake City.

With the lack of locations, a new hunger has plagued Manson, driving community meetings like the one held in Manson Northwest Webster’s high school auditorium Wednesday night. There, the 280-person hall was nearly full in a town of just under 1,700.

That’s close to double the attendance Gowrie Grocery LLC saw earlier this month in a meeting that sparked the Webster County town of about 1,000 people to raise $250,000 in 10 days.

Following in their footsteps, Manson Mayor Dave Anderson half-jokingly quipped that Manson should try to one-up Gowrie by meeting their goal — $200,000 — in just nine days.

-Messenger photo by Elijah Decious
Jill Heisterkamp, executive director of Calhoun County Economic Development Corporation, answers concerns from the audience on the details that could make or break the group’s effort to reestablish a nonprofit grocery store in town. Members of the group spearheading the effort on stage, from left to right: Mark Egli, Adam Ranthun, Justin Widlund, Justin Daggett, Heisterkamp, Josh Sturgis.

Manson’s path to a similar goal as other small, rural towns is saddled with both advantages and disadvantages.

For one, Manson’s store, known by its old sign as Manson Foods, is already closed. That means inventory must be built from scratch and customer shopping habits will have to be reestablished. That factor was one that drove the urgency for Gowrie to fundraise so quickly in order to avoid closure by owner Nick Graham.

Graham, lauded in 2006 as the youngest grocery store owner in the country at age 17, has closed five of his seven stores. This week, he publicly pondered closing one of the last two in Ackley. Gowrie residents have seen the writing on the wall for months.

Certain items listed as an asset in the Manson store, like the forklift, have gone missing, Anderson said. Other physical assets, like the shelves, have liens on them by about 40 different entities, he said.

“I think our store being closed was a benefit because we realized how much we missed it,” Anderson said.

-Messenger photo by Elijah Decious
Dave Anderson, mayor of Manson, fields questions on the town’s venture to reopen their grocery store that closed in November.

But even in Gowrie, residents have said the shelves have been bare with nary a loaf of bread to be bought. Some of Jamboree Foods’ most loyal customers have been forced to shop in Fort Dodge.

That kind of problem is one that could have spiraling consequences for a town trying to buck the trends of rural depopulation, as residents are lost to metropolitan areas like Des Moines.

“If you want to get workers, you have to have residents,” said Jill Heisterkamp, executive director of Calhoun County Economic Development Corporation. “If you want residents, you need to have amenities. A grocery store is kind of a basic thing.”

The lack of basic amenities leads to population losses, which leads to closures of other institutions, like public schools, she said.

But Manson’s effort also has significant advantages on its side. Anderson announced that an agreement has been reached between the building’s owners, Bob and Jan Duggar, and Manson Economic Development Corporation in which MEDC will purchase the building, giving the fledgling grocery store a year rent-free to get off the ground. That could make 200 grand go a lot further in buying stock with a wholesaler, bringing equipment up to date and hiring keys like a good manager.

-Messenger file photo
Shelves of the Heartland Market in Manson were nearly empty just before the store closed in November. Manson residents are trying to raise funds to reopen the store.

The venture, which is being explored as a non-profit, would be able to continually apply for grants not available to for-profit stores. As things stand, the temporary board assembled said it’s Manson’s most viable option.

“We’re too close to Fort Dodge, we’re not big enough… we’ve heard every excuse in the book,” from other chains like HyVee, Fareway and Kwik Star, Anderson said. “Trust me, we’ve tried a lot of avenues.”

But $200,000 is just the first hurdle.

“You can’t just open the doors and expect people to come,” said Heisterkamp. “You have to give people a reason to walk through the doors.”

That will mean taking a hard look at what the town really needs on the shelf, with a nearby Dollar General eager to compete on certain commodities.

Eric Peterson, owner of Lake City Food Center — the only grocery store left in the county — said that stores like the one in Manson need about 1,400 purchases per week to be viable. He said it will take at least 13 weeks before the store has any cash flow, but that maintaining a grocery store in rural America is not a lost cause.

“It aggravates me when Nick (Graham) says the Dollar General took his business,” Peterson said. “You’re in business, it’s a competition. You don’t let another company come in and take your business.”

Peterson owned his Lake City store for two years before a Dollar General opened there, taking 9% of his business — much less than estimates Graham cited in the decline of his small chain.

“When Nick says they took 30% of his business, he let them,” Peterson said, rousing the loudest round of applause to echo through the auditorium that night.

In a prior interview regarding Jamboree Foods, Gowrie’s former store owner Jeff Petersen, whose family ran Gowrie’s store from 1945 to 2018, said that even smaller stores like Casey’s General Store dug into sales on hot food, deli, soda and beer.

“Those are the things small stores make volume on,” he said.

As for the Dollar General, Jeff Petersen also thinks small town America can co-exist with chains, even as the yellow-signed stores become a pervasive threat to independent retail.

“Three-quarters of Dollar General is junk,” Jeff Petersen said. “Where they kill you is pop.”

Another advantage to pursuing a non-profit would be having a different mission than most retail.

“The goal is to make this thing break even,” said Randy Besch, a loan officer at Heartland Bank and concerned citizen in the audience Wednesday.

“It’s not going to be perfect right out of the gate, but it’s going to be a community store,” Anderson said.

After the applause has faded, that request — the only thing most residents have asked for — still stands. Only time will tell whether the momentum will rise to the occasion.

How to help

If you’d like to contribute to the effort to make grocery shopping a reality again in Manson, checks payable to Manson Grocery can be dropped off at either bank in Manson:

• Heartland Bank, 1314 First Ave.

• Manson State Bank, 1001 Main St.

Investments can be secured for a minimum of $2,000, and donations of any amount are welcomed. All donations, kept confidential, will be held in a pass through bank account until Manson Grocery reaches its goal. Once the goal of $200,000 has been reached, Manson Grocery’s Board of Directors will deposit checks into a new account under an agreed-upon store name.

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