IBJ Podcast: Cook Medical spearheaded manufacturing plant, grocery for struggling east siders. But how’s it going?

In late 2020, Bloomington-based device maker Cook Medical and several Indianapolis-based nonprofits announced plans to build a $15 million manufacturing facility at 38th Street and Sheridan Avenue. The goal was to create about 100 manufacturing jobs for residents of the high-poverty neighborhood. Those 100 employees then would receive key services from Goodwill of Central & Southern Indiana to ensure the workers and their families have the food, housing and education they need to succeed. Goodwill Commercial Services would run the plant, which would make medical devices for Cook, a subsidiary of Bloomington-based Cook Group. And to ensure employees and other area residents had access to healthy food, Cook Medical also planned to develop a grocery store next door named Indy Fresh Market. The grocery would employ another 40 or so people.

This was an audacious move for Cook Group, whose late founder, Bill Cook, was known for spearheading massive historic preservation and economic development projects in French Lick and West Baden. And Cook’s current president, Pete Yonkman, hoped that other corporations would use the same playbook for creating the manufacturing plant and grocery store as levers for neighborhood success in their communities.

With a budget of about $3.6 million, the Indy Fresh Market opened in fall 2023. Some members of its customer base balked at high prices, and Cook discovered that running an independent grocery store was more difficult than anticipated. The ribbon cutting for the manufacturing facility was in May 2022, but it wasn’t until this year that the plant reached 100 employees. Pete Yonkman returns to the IBJ Podcast this week to deliver an update on the facilities and how well Cook and its partners have been able to deliver on their goals. In particular, he discusses the grocery’s struggle to break even, the process for addressing crime in the neighborhood and whether this blueprint for community investment has caught on elsewhere.

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