We at Chicago Market are so fortunate to work with so many outstanding local businesses. 

And one of our great supporters has been The Shift, a co-working and community space in Uptown, that has hosted several of our Board meetings and educational workshops. 

It's like that scene from the Steve Martin classic "The Jerk," where he runs around screaming "The new phonebook is here! The new phonebook is here!"

We had that same level of excitement at Chicago Market HQ when we caught our first glimpses of our shiny, new branded water bottles. 

Your Board has built out a number of teams,  each of which has a focus. Recently, you learned about the work of Site Selection & Design, developing site selection criteria and reaching out to real estate brokers. This week, I want to update you on a team I lead called Grocery Logistics, Retail and Procurement, or GLRP for short (we smile and pronounce it GLuRP).

Chicago Market is moving forward at an exciting pace!  We're checking out sites, interviewing real estate agents and setting procurement policies.  In order to give our Owners more information about what we're up to, we've asked some of our Board Members to give updates on their activities.

This update is from Dan Miller, on Site Selection and Design. Dan has been hard at work trying to figure out how we pick the perfect site and what the store will look like once it's open.

Chicago Market is moving forward at an exciting pace!  We're checking out sites, interviewing real estate agents and setting procurement policies.  In order to give our Owners more information about what we're up to, we've asked some of our Board Members to give updates on their activities.

The first update is from Mark Ahlheim, on Site Selection and Design.  Mark is a grocery store and real estate expert, and he's  been hard at work trying to figure out how we find the perfect real estate agent to help make Chicago Market a reality.

As Chicago Market looks forward to securing a site for its brick-and-mortar store, we also look to bring aboard a commercial real estate agent who can represent our interests, completely understands our needs, and negotiates the best possible agreement for our space.  With that in mind, we have begun that search and hope to have that person aboard soon.

We had an absolute blast at the recent Greener Ravenswood event. 

The annual event benefits local, sustainable initiatives in the Ravenswood neighborhood -- one of the target areas for Chicago Market's store. 

Last year on July 4, Chicago Market had been active for three weeks. We published a flag, similar to this one, which had the names of our first Owners.

The entire Chicago Market team extends a huge congratulations to Local Foods, which is celebrating the grand opening of its beautiful new locally focused grocery store tomorrow. 

Not familiar with Local Foods?

Want to learn how to preserve summer's freshest produce year-round?

Join us for In the Kitchen with Chicago Market: Home-made Fruit Preserves at Peterson Garden Project's Community Cooking School June 27.

We have big news for Chicago Market Owners (and soon-to-be Owners):

Farmer Rob Montalbano, a fellow co-op Owner, is offering a $25 discount on his CSA subscriptions to current Chicago Market Owners. 

Not currently an Owner? As an added bonus, sign up to become an Owner and join the Montalbano Farms CSA before May 31, and you'll get 10 free pounds of tomatoes in August.