Concept 5 · Data & Impact

Strong Roots. Strong Futures.

Bend the curve on rural food access.

Rural independent grocery stores are closing at a rate that will leave a generation of towns without a place to buy food. We train the specialists — and the grocers — who can turn that line around.

Get involved
5
Specialist levels
60+
Graduates since 2023
10 yr
To slow the rate
180°
The long-term goal

The trend line we exist to change

Rural independent grocery store count — the erosion we're working to slow, then reverse.

20102020 Today20352050 We are here
Documented decline If nothing changes Our goal: turn it around

Illustrative — shape shown for direction, not exact figures. Real closure data drops in for launch.

The approach

Short-term roots. Long-term future.

01

Stabilize the roots

Resilience is built in the everyday decisions — pricing, product assortment, and where the labor goes.

02

Build the pathway

We bake the recipe for a successful transition into the daily mindset of operating a strong store.

03

Scale locally

How many leaders does it take? A lot — and local connections make the strongest networks.

For specialists

A cascade, not a catalog.

Level 1 — RGI's Rural Grocery Transition Specialist course — qualifies you to help a grocer move through transition. The Academy picks up from there. Each level opens only to graduates of the level before it.

Join the specialist list
  • Level 1 — Transition Specialist. Via K-State's RGI. The prerequisite for everything.
  • Level 2 — Advanced Specialist. 12 weeks on valuation, profitability, identity transition.
  • Ongoing — Community of Practice. Bi-weekly case work with other specialists.
  • Levels 3–5 — Facilitator track. Train graduates to teach the levels below. Coming soon.
  • The dashboard. Pricing and labor performance vs. revenue, in plain terms.
  • Twice-monthly Zoom. Profitability consultations + peer breakout rooms.
  • Programming that follows the data. Aggregate patterns decide what we work on.
  • Business Builders, quarterly. Deciding on purpose what your business will be worth.

For grocers · Healthy Bucket

Be the store that can't be replaced.

Upload your financials and see how your pricing and labor are actually performing against your revenue — not at tax time, but while you can still do something about it.

Join the Healthy Bucket list

About us

Stabilizing rural healthy food access.

Rural Transition Academy is a for-profit learning institution offering training, technology, and resources that work on business transition success from both long-term and short-term perspectives. We serve rural Kansas, Western Missouri, and the entire U.S. — and with Canada and Japan facing the same forces, a global market is a matter of time.

Carly Whorton

Carly Whorton

Founder & Chief of Field Development

Former rural grocery store owner (Cecil K's Hometown Market, Holton, KS, 2018–2023); startup grocery mentor for K-State's Rural Grocery Initiative; architect and lead facilitator of the Rural Grocery Transition Specialist program since its founding in 2022 — the only national training program dedicated to rural grocery succession support.

She co-founded Cecil K's in 2017 with no prior grocery background, navigated the store through the 2020 pandemic, opened a second location in 2022, and managed her own exit at the end of 2023 — experiencing firsthand the reality of untangling a shared business. The heart of her work is improving the average quality of life on this planet.

Rural Grocery InitiativeViable FoodIllinois Grocery Initiative