BREMERTON — The long-time food desert in downtown Bremerton will now have fresh, natural foods when the Kitsap Community Food Co-op opens on Thursday.

“Food Independence Day” will celebrate the much-awaited opening of the co-op’s storefront at 421 Park Ave. from 2 to 7 p.m. Produced on all-volunteer labor, the store will be the first co-op to operate in Kitsap County.

“We’re ending the food desert," said Kitsap Community Food Co-op President Erin Falcone, referring to a federal designation regarding the high number of households that are low-income with limited access to fresh food. "Which nobody else has done.”

She said “we” means the community of Kitsap.

“No big corporation is coming in to help, no big political entity is coming in to help, the community itself is coming to end the food desert,” Falcone said.

The Kitsap Food Co-op incorporated in 2009, but challenges with funding and trying to "start big" created complications in getting a store opened quickly. In 2017, new members helped in the re-organization of the co-op and decided that starting out small and expanding as their funds and membership grew was a better plan.

Bob Dollar joined as a member of the co-op in 2011, just a few years after it started. The past few days he's been busy putting bulk bins together, building a produce stand, and hanging curtains in the store. He said finally having a storefront feels fantastic.

"I think a lot of us thought this could never happen but some of us never gave up," Dollar said. "And I was one of those that never gave up, and kept pushing it and asking people to join, and here we are, our own little store. Now I don’t have to go all the way out to Poulsbo Central Market to get organic produce."

Dollar said he got involved with co-ops when he lived in California. But around his home in downtown Bremerton, all he had was a 7-Eleven — until now.

"I think it’s going to open people’s eyes that you can have real food in our local neighborhood," Dollar said. "Now I don’t have to get in my car to go anywhere, because I live two blocks from here."

Many of the current organizers recently moved to Kitsap County and, like Dollar, were frustrated by not having fresh, organic groceries available in bulk or with recyclable packaging that their former communities had.

Falcone said, however, that the store would not be here if the original founders hadn’t done the community-building to get it started.

The Kitsap Co-op operated a small pop-up store in the Sweet and Smokey Diner for about nine months while searching for a small storefront. Then, the site of the pet food store next door became available.

Falcone said the co-op liked that there’s a big pedestrian community near the store, so those who live nearby and may not have cars can easily walk to the store to purchase their groceries.

The co-op will open in two stages. On Thursday, customers will be able to peruse 800 square feet of the 1,500-square-foot space, with over 500 products. Store inventory will include locally sourced fruit and vegetables, health and beauty products, eco-friendly household dry goods, natural products from Pacific Northwest distributors, and loads of bulk bins.

“We can actually fit so much variety in such a small space because we forgo the packaging on a lot of it,” Falcone said. “When you’re not having everything in individual packaging you get a lot more different products at a lot lower cost to the consumer.”

She said the co-op encourages customers to bring reusable containers to carry home items purchased from the bins.

“We will support you, we will help you, we will teach you how to do zero waste shopping,” Falcone said.

The bins also helped in the fundraising effort. Instead of “adopt-a-brick” like some parks or educational facilities have to raise funds, the co-op created “adopt-a-bin,” where customers can pay to have a message across the top of a bulk bin. There a still a few bins available for adoption, Falcone said.

A crowdfunding campaign and donations from community members also funded the store's opening. Because co-ops can’t get business loans for startup costs like a traditional store, Falcone said it took the better part of six months to raise the $50,000 needed to open the storefront.

The co-op did get a grant from Boeing Employee’s Credit Union to help with upfront costs.

The store operates under a cooperative business model. For $200, people can own a share of the store and are lifetime members, receiving special discounts. Memberships can be purchased at the register or online at http://kitsapfood.coop/. Being a member is not a requirement for shopping there.

In the second phase, the co-op will open more retail space, more products, in-house prepared foods and an outdoor seating area.

Falcone said the co-op would like to have more stores in Kitsap County.

“We think we’ll be best served by several small stores throughout Kitsap rather than one giant store,” Falcone said. “So the long-range vision is to establish here in Bremerton and then grow to serve more and more people.”

Fresh produce sold in the store is sourced as close to home as possible. If a product is not grown or produced in Kitsap County, store managers will expand the radius to the greater Puget Sound area, then to western Washington and then the Pacific Northwest.

She said there are a few items, like citrus fruit and bananas, that can’t grow here that are shipped in, but the co-op still uses distributors with high-sourcing standards. The store also leaving some room on its shelves for requests and to expand inventory based on what people in the community want the most.

On opening day, Falcone expects the store to be “utter chaos, but beautiful chaos.”

“We only have 800 square feet!” Falcone laughed. “We think it’s a very real possibility we will sell out of a lot of things, and we’re totally OK with that. People will just have to be patient as we build our supply chain because we are small, it’ll take us a little bit to dial in how much and how frequently we’ll have to take deliveries to keep our shelves well stocked. So be patient please.”

Kitsap Community Food Co-op will be open weekdays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and weekends from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and will add hours as needed to meet demand.