The Market Report

John Edward's Market Opened: 1971 Owner:  John Pouwels Previous Tenants:  First National (opened ca. 1940) Cooperative:  none Location:  158 Main St, Ellsworth, ME Photographed:  June 17, 2022 Ellsworth is the larger town in this area, roughly between the Blue Hill Peninsula and Mount Desert Island. So this town actually has three full supermarkets, and today The Market Report tours the small independent store right downtown! John Edward's Market has been here since the 70s, but one look at the exterior will tell you this building has been a store for much longer than that. In fact, First National Stores (Finast) opened up here around 1940. These days, the roughly 6,000 square foot space is a natural food and specialty store. Wine is in the front-left corner, with produce just behind that on the left side of the store. Also in the first aisle is frozen food and, in a first for me, a service counter where a clerk fills your container with bulk herbs and spices....

Burnt Cove Market Opened: 1971 Owner:  employee owned Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  none Location:  1 S Burnt Cove Rd, Stonington, ME Photographed:  June 14, 2022 I talk a lot about cooperatives here on The Market Report, and generally I'm referring to what's more accurately called retailers' cooperatives, groups of independent grocery store owners that share resources like warehouses, distribution contracts, marketing, and brand names (think Wakefern or Key Food ). Lately, we've also been seeing more stores that are community cooperatives , or grocery stores that the general public can buy an ownership stake in. There's still a third type of grocery cooperative, although it's one that doesn't generally get a lot of attention: employee cooperatives, where the people who work in the store also own a small share of the store itself. (This is similar to employee-owned supermarkets, though in some cases the employees don't own the full company -- s...