East Lansing Food Co-op: Persona

by Emily Cumpata
For academic purposes only.

User: Kate, 19, Student at Michigan State, Sophomore

Background Information: Kate has just moved to an apartment on Grand River and Bailey. She is not living at home or in the dorms so this will be her first year grocery shopping and cooking for herself. She is very health and environmentally conscious, but being a student she must watch her budget as well. She has heard of the ELFCO as a potential place to shop for groceries and knows where it is, but wants to learn how the prices at ELFCO compare to larger stores such as Kroger and Meijer.

Goal: To find out if purchasing healthy, locally produced food at ELFCO will cost significantly more than shopping somewhere else.

Information Needed:
- Best price vs. competitors (Kroger, Meijer,
farmers markets, Foods for Living)
- Health benefits of products
- Where products come from (local or fair trade?)

Motivators: Kate's motivator is food to feed herself. Also, to find a store where she can buy groceries while supporting local producers and reducing their environmental impact

Problem Setting:
- Discovering that ELFCO prices seem more expensive
than the store where they usually shop

Online Affordances:
• A tool that compares prices of items from all grocery
stores in East Lansing (item to item)
• Price being a non-member
• Price being a member
• Price being a working member
• A list of the benefits of being a member at ELFCO
• Blog/discussion that members can contribute to
• Non-members can ask questions that are answered by members/employees Kate would be able to type in a product she wanted to buy (apples for example), and it would show her the price
of apples at ELFCO compared to other East Lansing stores such as Kroger, Meijer, and Foods for Living.