The contractor whose biggest job to date is a highway reconstruction in Mooresville is owned by the people who run its crews. Blythe Development, a Charlotte road and bridge builder founded in 1921, became 100 percent employee-owned on March 29, 2024, through a stock ownership plan covering more than 800 workers. Across the state line in Fort Mill, three industrial controls firms sharing one office on Lakemont Boulevard, Lord & Company, MacGuire & Crawford and R.A. Moore, all describe themselves as employee-owned. In Mooresville, AMS Retail Solutions, the team that trains store staff and runs product demos for suppliers selling through Home Depot, Lowe's and thousands of other stores, is "proud to be 100% employee-owned."
Most of Charlotte's employee ownership looks like that: builders, engineers and industrial suppliers that sell to other businesses. The part a household can use is smaller. It starts at the grocery store and reaches the roof: Baker Roofing, whose Charlotte team works out of Wyoming Avenue, became 100 percent employee-owned in July 2025, and the arborists at Davey Tree's McDaniel Lane office work for a company its employees bought in 1979. This guide collects the employee-owned and worker-owned businesses a Charlotte-area household can actually shop with, explains how each is owned, and points to the people who can help you work at one, start one or sell your own company to its employees.
Browse the directory
9 businesses, sorted by what you'd use them for. Each one has its own page with what it is, how it's owned, and how we checked.
Worker cooperative 2 ESOP 6 Employee-owned, vehicle unstated 1
Three ways to own the place
"Employee-owned" covers three different arrangements, and the difference matters if you care about who makes the decisions.
A worker cooperative is owned and governed by the people who work there, one member, one vote. The North Carolina Employee Ownership Center counts about 17 in the state. Sow True Seed in Asheville became one in January 2022 when its founder, Carol Koury, retired and handed the seed company to its workers. Equal Exchange, the fair trade coffee company, has more than 100 worker-owners, and the top manager and the newest hire hold an identical share.
An employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, is a retirement trust that holds company stock on workers' behalf. NCEOC counts about 137 in North Carolina. Ownership can be partial or total, so the percentage matters: Blythe, Bob's Red Mill and King Arthur Baking are at 100 percent, while Publix is owned by its current and former employees alongside a minority stake held by the founding Jenkins family.
An employee ownership trust is set up by the selling owner to hold the company for its workers, and profits beyond what the business needs go to them. It lacks an ESOP's tax benefits but costs less to set up and run. ShopBot Tools, a Durham maker of CNC machines, became North Carolina's first in 2021. Closer to home, Certified Employee-Owned lists Southern Shade Tree, a Fort Mill landscaping company working since 1954, as trust-owned since 2026.
This guide counts businesses where employees hold a majority of the company or govern it directly. Stock options at a public company or a startup are a different thing, and they are left out.
Why Charlotte's picture looks the way it does
Charlotte's worker co-op scene is small, and the numbers show it. The US Federation of Worker Cooperatives directory lists about a dozen North Carolina businesses, in Asheville, Durham, Morganton, Burnsville, Hendersonville, Wilson, Southern Pines and the Triangle, where Weaver Street Market has four listed stores. None are in the Charlotte metro, and none are in South Carolina. The state's co-op support has also leaned east: NCEOC is based in Durham and runs city programs for Raleigh and Durham, and Carolina Common Enterprise, North Carolina's cooperative development center since 2012, has closed.
Employee ownership through ESOPs is a different story. NCEOC's map of North Carolina employee-owned companies places more than two dozen in the Charlotte region, from an electrical distributor on Freedom Drive to a utility contractor in Monroe and a motorsports company in Mooresville. Choate Construction, which runs its Charlotte work from a Providence Road office, has marked ten years as employee-owned. Blythe shows how a family company ends up there. When the Blythe brothers wanted to take money out of the business, they sold to an employee stock plan that keeps family control while spreading ownership to more than 800 employees, Business North Carolina reported, at a time when a Charlotte investment banker puts private equity's share of middle-market company sales at more than half.
More of those sales are coming. When UNC Charlotte and NCEOC surveyed more than 100 minority-owned, women-owned and small businesses in Mecklenburg County, 60 percent of owners had 15 years or less until retirement. Few knew the option existed: only 6 percent of companies with fewer than 20 employees knew about employee stock ownership plans, the Belk College reported, and almost 80 percent of respondents were uninterested or unsure.
The closest things to a shared-ownership storefront on the way are two co-op groceries. One is Three Sisters Market, a cooperative grocery planned for West Boulevard and Clanton Road. Nearly 600 people had bought memberships by April 2026, and the West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition hopes to break ground by the end of the year. It will be owned by community members, and it will be Charlotte's first cooperative market. Historic West End Partners is planning a second co-op grocery on the West Trade and Beatties Ford corridor.
What you can do with this
The obvious thing is to shop. Publix has opened more than 20 stores across the Charlotte market since its first in Ballantyne in 2014, the Rock Hill Herald reported, and the company behind them is owned by the people who work there. Bob's Red Mill and King Arthur are on baking-aisle shelves. Davey's Charlotte crews handle tree work across the metro, and Baker's Charlotte team takes residential roof repairs. Frugal MacDoogal is on Festival Drive in Fort Mill. Equal Exchange, Sow True Seed and Cane Creek, the Fletcher bike-parts maker, ship to your door.
The less obvious things take more than a shopping trip.
Work at one. The Certified Employee-Owned directory lets you filter employee-owned companies by state and sector, including the Fort Mill and Mooresville firms above, so you can see who is hiring before you apply.
Start one. The free Zero to Co-op curriculum built by Carolina Common Enterprise walks a founding group through organizing, finances and a business plan, and the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives directory shows who is already doing it in North Carolina, from Opportunity Threads, a cut-and-sew co-op in Morganton, to Cenzontle, an interpretation and translation co-op in Asheville.
Convert one. If you own a business and are thinking about who takes it over, the North Carolina Employee Ownership Center offers a free, confidential first conversation about ESOPs, co-ops and trusts, and can introduce you to North Carolina companies that have already made the switch: email info@nceoc.org or call (919) 339-1611. Owners in York County can start with the National Center for Employee Ownership, which publishes buyout guides and an ESOP feasibility toolkit.
Know a Charlotte-area business owned by its workers that belongs here, or one that has closed or sold? Tell us, and we will check it the same way: an ownership record from a co-op federation, the NC Employee Ownership Center or Certified Employee-Owned, plus a live sign that the business is trading today.
Harris Teeter, the Matthews-based grocer, was left out because Kroger agreed to buy it in 2013 and runs it as a subsidiary. Carolina Common Enterprise is listed above as a resource and not as a business, since it has closed. Three Sisters Market will be community-owned rather than worker-owned, so it sits outside the count. Charlotte Mechanical, an HVAC and plumbing company, was held back because its site says "employee owned and operated" while its Built In Charlotte profile calls it family-owned. Frugal MacDoogal is listed on Certified Employee-Owned's federal filing data, so confirm the details with the store. Several Charlotte-area ESOPs on NCEOC's map are waiting on a check before they are added.
Information verified October 2026 by FYP Charlotte. Know a business we missed, or one that has changed hands? Tell us.