Anabel’s Grocery

Anabel’s Grocery provides nutritious, affordable food for all Cornell students through a student-run grocery store and educational programs that create a fun and empowering community around quality food, food choices, wellness and positive social change. Our store is located right on Cornell’s campus, eliminating the need for transportation and greatly reducing the time required to shop. Because of our subsidy fund, we are able to buy fresh and nutritions food, much of it from local vendors, at low cost to our shoppers. On average, we save our shoppers 20% on their grocery bill. We are also the only venue on campus accepting SNAP EBT. Anabel’s helps students stretch their food budgets and prioritizes a healthy diet by focusing on fresh produce, whole grains, legumes, nuts, herbs and spices.

The problem

Food on campus is expensive, and the Cornell campus lacks a full-scale grocery store. For many students, a lack of time, transportation, money, or knowledge prevents them from accessing nutritionally adequate food. In a 2019 survey of Cornell undergraduate students, 17% reported having to skip meals frequently due to financial constraints. For Hispanic students this number jumped to 28.2% and for Black students to 34%.

The same survey showed that a lack of transportation and a lack of time to shop and prepare food are also significant barriers to eating well for Cornell students. Thirty percent of students said that they frequently did not eat as much as they needed because of a lack of transportation to an area grocery store. This number rose to almost 38% for Black students and 35% for Hispanic students.

Twenty-nine percent of students surveyed said they frequently ate less than the needed because of the lack of time to shop for food and almost 37% said they were frequently hindered by a lack of time to prepare food. These numbers are significantly higher for Black and Hispanic students: 41% of Black students and 35% of Hispanic students responded that they ate less than they wanted to because they lacked time to shop at area grocery stores: 48% of Black students and 44% of Hispanic students surveyed said they ate less then they want to because of lack of time to prepare food.

Our approach

Our approach to addressing the problems of food insecurity and the associated stigma is to operate a student run grocery store on campus with low-cost, nutritious food for all Cornell students. Yet, Anabel’s is far more than a grocery store

We hope to increase nutritional literacy and cooking skills through easy to make, nutritious and inexpensive recipes, and programming events such as cooking classes, community dinners, and guest lecturers. To make cooking more accessible, we have established a pot and pan rental system, since access to adequate kitchenware is a barrier for many students. We also collaborate with like-minded student organizations to tackle the systemic forces that give rise to food insecurity, and racial inequities in the campus food system. For example, we have established an Anti-racism Action Fund, from the sale of produce donated to us by the Dilmun Hill student farm and the Cornell Hydroponics Club. This fund supports anti-racist student actions on campus and is distributed by Cornell4BlackLives.

By design, Anabel’s has a somewhat unorthodox organizational structure, one that is lateral rather than hierarchical. We don’t have supervisors, managers or directors. Anyone can take the initiative to make decisions and effect change. In fact, we want everyone to have agency in decision-making and taking action because Anabel’s then benefits from the good ideas, passion, interests, and skills that each and every one of you bring to the organization. That said, we do have structure, policies and defined roles that are consistent from semester to semester. And although everyone has agency to make decisions, our organization isn’t completely flat. Those with more experience naturally take on roles with more responsibility. We have three committees (Org Strategy, Operations & HR; Purchasing, Sales & Product Promotion; Collaboration & Education) that meet weekly and are facilitated by a committee coordinator. These committees largely govern themselves, determining their goals for the semester and who will take which roles. While committee roles are defined, they can change depending on the talents and interests of members and the evolving needs of the organization. The committee coordinators meet weekly to ensure effective communication and coordination between committees.

Our Team

Our team is made up of about 40 students from across years, majors, and colleges. All members of our team are currently or have taken AEM 3385, a social entrepreneurship practicum focused on Anabel’s Grocery. Everyone in this course is helping to run Anabel’s. After taking the course, some students continue with Anabel’s to coordinate one of our committees and staff the store.

Contact information

anabelgrocery@gmail.com