It took a village
The small Frisian village of Wijnjewoude is now the proud owner of a supermarket. The villagers are investors who will see profit. A true win-win
Arie Van Dijk lives in the tiny village of Wijnjewoude in Friesland. He had just moved there from a beautiful village in the south of France. Europe is full of little villages that are microcosms in their own way.
Anyway, back to Wijnjewoude. Their supermarket got burned down in a devastating fire a few years back. They had to accommodate by driving to the next village.
But they were pissed that there was no supermarket in town. The owner's intentions were to turn the burned out lot into flats. The community opposed it on the grounds that there was no structure taller than the fire house and it should remain that way.
Little villages understand that progress has nothing to do with size. It has everything to do with using new tools to make life easier and increase its quality. Good living. Hygge. Gezellig. Joie de vivre. None of those require physical growth.
Anyway, the more pissed they were, the more entrepreneurial they got: the villagers organized, created a committee to bring back the supermarket, raised cash locally, bought the lot from the previous owner and created a work group that took care of rebuilding. Ari and his friends used every resource at their disposal to succeed.
They bought all the fixtures to fit it properly for only about 7000 Euro from a nearby market that was renovating. The entire village chipped in. Retired folks found the trucks to fetch the fixtures from out of town.
During all this process, there were no banks involved. The village came up with the cash locally, and managed the process themselves.
This is awesome. I am ecstatic even writing about it after hearing from my friend in Holland. Keep reading because it gets better.
The village, God bless their heart, are of the entrepreneurial kind, as you can see. But they had no previous experience carrying a complex business that relies on so many different supply chains and runs on crazy protocols, especially post pandemic.
They needed an operator. The one that rose to the occasion saw their announcement on Facebook and replied. He and his family ran a small restaurant nearby. They had been trying for a while to get a loan to expand their business but to no avail.
So, again, the village got together and devised a scheme in which they could fix that locally and move on with the operator.
He would take over the market for 5 years and pass the profits on to the villagers, who would get a return on their investment. After returning the villager’s investments, he will have the option to buy the supermarket from them. Each Euro that villagers put up for this endeavor will become an investment that will make a profit.
But wait. It gets even better:
After the market was built and the operator was selected and they had agreed to the five year plan, they needed to fill it with groceries to sell. And that costs money. So, once more, the village got together and bought prepaid cards to raise the needed cash. With that operating capital, the market was stocked.
The small Frisian village of Wijnjewoude is now the proud owner of a supermarket, the villagers are investors who will see profit, they have prepaid groceries and, most importantly, pride, identity, visibility and happiness are through the roof.
Never has the phrase "It takes a village" been used in a most literal sense.
In lessons that should apply to us in America: this is how you deal with food deserts. THIS IS HOW.