The residential homes that line the intersection of 3rd St. and 12th Ave. were not built with small businesses in mind. But this didn’t stop Positively 3rd Street Bakery from setting up shop there in 1983. For over forty years, the bakery has operated from a converted residential home—with workers lugging flour and other ingredients up and down flights of stairs to meet the demand of an ever-growing customer base.
Positively 3rd Street Bakery is a worker-owned cooperative in Duluth’s Central Hillside neighborhood. In its beginnings, the bakery was unconventional in a few ways. They have always prioritized baking with organic, locally-sourced ingredients, which was a relatively niche market forty years ago. And while Minnesota is now experiencing a massive growth of cooperatively-owned businesses, the Positively 3rd team had no local cooperatives that they could approach for business advice or guidance.
But none of this phased the bakers, and they quickly grew into their niche. Because so few grocery stores offered locally-sourced or organic products forty years ago, the bakery found a market for their products through regional shipping to specialty grocery stores. And to navigate the governance and operations of their cooperative, the worker-owners have leaned on the wisdom inherited from long-term members and, what Teresa Whittet calls “dusty old books from the sixties.”
Teresa Whittet and Angi Ball, (respectively) the President and Treasurer of Positively 3rd Street, have been worker-owners at the bakery for over fifteen years. They say that the bakery’s collective decision making, which is key to worker-owned cooperatives, gave them unique opportunities to grow into leadership roles
“It was hard to find a job that was satisfying,” says Angi “I would have ideas in other workplaces but was told to go back to what I was supposed to do. I had no idea what a worker-owned cooperative was like when the bakery hired me… but it worked for me. Now I can take on more of a leadership role. The bakery feels like a part of me, and it’s something that I can take really seriously.”
As a cooperative, the Positively 3rd Street team members are running the business as owners, board members, and bakers. This empowers the team to make business decisions that reflect their values, not only as workers but also as community members. At the height of Operation Metro Surge, for example, the bakery donated 100% of their business profits to families impacted by immigration enforcement, and raised over $17,000 as a result.
Angi says that it means a lot to people when they see what Positively 3rd Street’s team does as both community members and a cooperative. “When first-time customers come into bakery and realize we’re a cooperative, that the person helping them at counter is getting the profits and benefits, they want to support that.”
In addition to engaging with their community, the worker-owners are also reimagining what their business could look like. Since Positively 3rd Street’s beginnings, the market for organic, locally-sourced food has soared, and with it the local demand for the bakery’s long-standing, tried-and-true baked goods. As a result, shipping has fallen drastically over the last fifteen years, while foot traffic has increased. Since their current space wasn’t designed to accommodate many customers, the cooperative is now preparing to expand into a new space. This requires technical assistance and financing from a lender that understands the governance and finances of cooperatives, which the worker-owners of Positively 3rd Street say has been difficult to find.
“We’ve reached out to a lot of lenders, and it’s hard to get taken seriously as a cooperative,” says Teresa. “We struggled to secure a small construction loan, because traditional banks don’t understand how cooperatives function.”
But things changed for the worker-owners when they met Darren Mozenter, MCCD’s Senior Shared Ownership Advisor based in Duluth. Darren had visited the bakery several times to talk to the worker-owners about MCCD’s technical assistance and specialized financing for cooperative businesses. Teresa says that these conversations “[were] the first time I felt like somebody outside the business understood what we’re doing.”
Teresa and Angi began working with Darren in 2025 to do the groundwork for the bakery’s growth. This included revising the bylaws—the governing structure– of the cooperative, stabilizing and modernizing internal systems, and reviewing their finances to prepare for a loan application.
“We have to expand in the next five years,” says Teresa, “and that feels like a possibility now that we know Darren. MCCD helped a lot with our confidence, we feel more versed in the financial world now.”
As the worker-owners of Positively 3rd continue preparing for their growth with Darren, they are considering many opportunities for the bakery. Between purchasing their own commercial property and joining an incubator space for local cooperatives, they are planning for the future of the bakery with confidence and excitement. And from purchasing their ingredients locally to organizing mutual aid fundraisers, the worker owners will remain committed to building a business that supports their community.
“The people here are taking part in more than just the food service industry,” says Teresa. “They’re also building a much deeper connection between workers and our community.”