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C Fresh Market - an independent grocer located in the Riverbend neighborhood of Des Moines, Iowa - specializes in meeting the needs of its diverse surrounding community.
"We're not a typical grocery store," said David Cotran, financial director at C Fresh.
"We're ... an international grocery store. So we cater to a lot of different countries. We have products such as from the Philippines, from Malaysia, from Japan, from Korea, from Vietnam, from China, from Indo-European [countries] - which consists of a lot of Mediterranean food. We also have products from the Hispanic [countries] and of course we have domestic products that you will see at a typical grocery store."
The supermarket also runs a Vietnamese restaurant, a beauty parlor, a travel agency and jewelry repair on-site.
The Cotran family got the idea for this type of model in international stores in California.
"The mindset is to bring in the customers, and the job is to provide as many things as they need and work from there."
Grand opening
Simon Cotran opened the store in January 2012 after receiving financing from IFF, a private nonprofit corporation and Community Development Financial Institution that provides loans to projects in low-income neighborhoods. The nonprofit itself receives funds from the Healthy Food Financing Initiative that is intended to help open supermarkets, farmers markets and other retailers offering nutritious food in food deserts.
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