- Welcome to Viable Food Community.
Build stores. Strengthen stores. Build the people and systems that help them last.
Viable Food Community Help
Everything you need to use this community — written for people who run stores, develop grocery access, and support food systems. No forum jargon required.
- Getting started
- Viable Food Community is a professional space for independent grocery operators, co-op leaders, food-access professionals, and people working to strengthen grocery access. Read the Community Guidelines, then introduce yourself and browse by board. You do not need to understand the forum structure to get value from it.
- Asking a question
- Use the Ask a Question button to choose the closest topic without needing to know the board structure. Provide useful context: what you are trying to accomplish, what is happening, what you have already tried, and what decision you are trying to make. A moderator can move your question if it fits better elsewhere.
- Replying to a discussion
- Reply to add your experience, ask a clarifying question, or share what has worked in your store or community. Real experience is the most valuable thing here. Critique ideas and practices rather than people.
- Following a topic
- Use the notification controls on a topic or board to follow conversations you care about. You control how and when you are notified.
- Notifications
- You can receive email or on-site alerts for replies, quotes, and followed topics. Adjust these in your profile under Notifications. A weekly digest may become available over time.
- Searching the community
- Use the search box at the top of the page. Searching before asking often surfaces a question that has already been answered, and solved questions are marked to make them easy to find.
- Attachments and images
- You can attach helpful images and documents such as photos, checklists, and screenshots. Before attaching, remove employee, customer, vendor, account, financial, or other information you do not want shared. Screenshots can contain hidden metadata or sensitive content.
- Private messages
- Private messages are for direct one-to-one conversations between members. They are subject to the same community standards as public posts.
- Reporting a post
- If a post is unsafe, abusive, deceptive, or unrelated, use the report option on that post. Reports go to moderators privately.
- Privacy and sensitive information
- Do not post confidential store, employee, customer, vendor, account, or financial information. Public posts and attached files are visible to the community and may be found later through search. You control what appears on your public profile; keep anything you are not comfortable sharing public to yourself.
- Profiles and expertise
- Your profile can describe your role, region, organization, and areas of interest. Verified status (such as Verified Grocery Operator or Viable Food Specialist) is awarded by staff based on confirmed experience; it is never self-assigned.
- Solved questions
- When a question receives an answer that resolves it, the person who asked can mark one reply as the accepted answer, giving the question a Solved indicator. Moderators can correct selections. Solved questions stay visible as durable knowledge.
- Viable Food tool support
- Each Viable Food tool has its own board for questions, feedback, bug reports, and improvement ideas. Use the tool boards for the Illinois Food Access Map, Store Walk, Pricing, and Scheduling. If you need help with a tool, ask there or use the Ask a Question flow.
- Account and sign-in help
- Sign in with your existing account. If you have trouble signing in, use the password reset option or contact us via the main Viable Food website.