Our History

Building community & selling great food since 1979

Serving those who value the connection between food, their families' health, and the environment has always been a primary focus for Mississippi Market. The ongoing success of ours and other co-ops has helped pave the way for better practices in how food is produced, distributed and marketed.

Our Roots

Mississippi Market opened on the corner of Saint Clair and Pascal on March 1, 1979 with the mission of providing healthy, unprocessed food to the surrounding neighborhood. The St. Paul community responded favorably to Mississippi Market, and by the late1980's the co-op had outgrown its space. In 1991 the co-op moved to its next location near the corner of Randolph and Fairview, more than tripling its retail space from 1,100 to 3,595 square feet.

Organic and natural foods sales boomed in the ensuing years and our co-op's sales grew apace. Strong sales growth over this period led Mississippi Market to open a second store in April of 1999 at the corner of Selby and Dale. The Selby store has 7,100 square feet of retail shopping space and includes a full-service natural foods deli and juice bar, in addition to the departments featured at both of our stores (see Goods & Services). The Selby location's second story houses the co-op's administrative offices and several neighborhood-based non-profit organizations.

In 2003 the co-op's board completed a sale-leaseback agreement of the Randolph location with nearby Saint Paul Academy. Then we focused on building our financial strength for future expansion opportunities. Our preference was to find a location that would serve the community served by our Randolph store. As time went on and extensions to our lease grew shorter, it became clear that we needed to broaden our search. In March of 2008 we signed a purchase agreement for the 1500 W 7th street p roperty and began planning for the new store, which opened in July of 2009. With member-owner suggestions to include sustainable building features and a community gathering space, we worked with a LEED-certified architect to design our store with enough “green” features so that we estimate it would meet the requirements for a LEED Gold level building. The 7,700 square foot store includes on-site meat cutting facilities, a deli, juice and espresso bar, seating area for 30 people and classroom.