We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Katie Johnson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Katie below.

Katie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Growing up in Kit Carson I slowly saw the town slowly start to fade. In June of 2022 I heard the news of my local grocery store closing and new that without a store to purchase basic food items, the town would take a huge economic hit. So in August of 2023 I made the decision to open a grocery store. It took and entire year from deciding to open the store to opening day. During that year I researched, spoke with people in the industry, and applied for mutlipule sources of funding. Also a big idea was given to me through a news letter about a small grocery store in Minnesota that offered a unique style of shopping. In there community (that is so similar to mine) they started a 24 hour self service shopping experience. How it works is local people pay a yearly membership fee and are given a personalized password to the door and can self checkout their grocery’s at anytime (even after the store is closed.)
This model has been very successful for my business and community, and only works because of the trust worthly people that live and work in my community.
After about a year in business I came across the idea to open a grocery delivery service to cover a 2 hour radius or more from Kit Carson to help expand the access of healthy food to the rural places on the Eastern Plains. With that idea coming to mind I began more research. That research led me to the Food Recovery Resiliency Grant which I have received and plan to excute by September.

Katie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a fourth generation farmer and ranch. I was raised in the town of Kit Carson Colorado, graduate the K-12 highschool with 11 kids in my grade in 2016. After graduation I pursued and received a Bachelores degree in Agriculture Business with honors in 2019. After college i spent some time working in an accouting department and then transferring to the local NRCS offices. It was while i was working at the local NRCS office that I received the opportunity to start the journey of entrepreneurship.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The biggest hurtle I have add to jump over as a small grocery store is finding a distributor that would stop in my rural community to provide food at a competitive price. With the two well know wholesale companies have very large order minimums that my small store could not reach on a weekly basis, I had to get creative. To start i was using the wholesalers that the local school used for grocery staples such as; bread, milk, eggs, and produce. I then started working with Ogollala Commons to get locally grown produce. And then i was also using UPS, Fedex, and driving to go get other items. After alot of ups and downs I was able to secure a spot on a route the provides healthier alternative to basic household brands and is somewhat competitive with large chain stores. My hope is with the success of the grocery delivery route I will be able to get on more competitive routes that have more products and better prices for my customers.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Funding the initial capital for my business was a long endevor that took hours of research and sharing my story. Thanks to the Colorado Enterprise fund I was able to get a loan grant match. With that i was able to secure a grant to purchase the refrigerator units in my grocery store which was a huge help in the start up cost. And thanks to the Colorado Department Of Agriculture I was able to receive another grant to start up the grocery delivery route.

Contact Info:

• Website: katieskornerstore.com (this is going to change)
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com