“Snacking is fun and that’s what we should always remember. The rule we have within our store is that we want everyone to walk out feeling better than when they walked in,” said Rachel Krupa, founder of The Goods Mart, a better-for-you convenience store located in the SoHo district of Manhattan.
In a recent installment of SFA’s Working with Buyers webinar series, Krupa spoke with Ron Tanner, SFA vice president of education, government, and industry relations, about her experience during the pandemic and how The Goods Mart is serving the community through good food and good deeds.
Tanner: What is The Goods Mart and what are you trying to accomplish with it?
Krupa: The Goods Mart is a socially-conscious convenience store that curates better-for-you products across a wide variety of categories. With the store, I wanted to take everything I love about snacks and food and make it healthier and more accessible. The store is rooted in community and elevates food makers of all types; pioneers in the space as well as up-and-comers. It’s a melting pot of incredible brands and nothing in the store is over $25.
Tanner: How do you find these innovative and better-for-you brands?
Krupa: It’s a mix of everything. We do have people coming into the store and dropping off product, as well as emailing me. But we also find brands through looking at Instagram, reading trade publications, talking to friends, and speaking with food incubators. We want to know what the brands we love are into.
Tanner: How did the pandemic affect The Goods Mart in March and April? How were you able to stay open?
Krupa: The first conversation we had was around whether or not we stay open; and that was before food retailers were deemed essential businesses. We knew we had to stay open because we serve the community. No matter how many people come in on certain day, they will be appreciative that we’re open.
Once we decided that, we had to put all of the safety protocols in place to make sure employees and customers stayed safe. I did tons of research on best practices around gloves, masks, how often to clean and sanitize, as well as around our self-serve operations.
It was very slow in the beginning, and it still is. But we had a bit of a client base change. Because we were one of the only stores open in SoHo, we had a huge uptick in essential workers coming in and buying things.
Tanner: Did you change the product mix at all to accommodate the new customers?
Krupa: The only thing we really changed was removing some of our products with a really short shelf life. For example, we used to get grab-and-go items from local restaurants, but many of them closed down, so we eliminated that. We also got rid of a couple SKUs of yogurt, but other than that, we didn’t change that much.
We did do more guidance around what kind of products people might want to try and buy. And people were really into it by the end and wanted to try more new things that we’d recommend them. It was really educational; we helped introduced people to products but we also learned a lot from them.
Tanner: Did you put any programs in place to help essential workers?
Krupa: Yes, we created surprise snack baskets that anyone could send to a friend or coworker, or could be donated to NYC hospitals for frontline healthcare workers and to NYC food banks. The boxes could be customized by diet/lifestyle, so we had vegan options, low-sugar options, gluten-free options. We would personally deliver the donated snack boxes to the hospitals and food banks. The thanks and compassion we would get was amazing; but it was the least we could do!
Tanner: Did you have employees who didn’t feel comfortable coming to work? If so, how did you manage that?
Krupa: We did. Our store being very small, only one employee could work in the store a day, whereas typically we have four to five employees in the space at a time. Three employees weren’t able or didn’t feel comfortable coming in, so it was essentially just three of us working six days a week. It was hard, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Tanner: What kinds of items were/are people looking for?
Krupa: We’ve always carried things like flour, soups, and quinoa; so those things started selling a lot more than normal. But a lot of people came to us because we carried something they loved and they wanted a treat.
Some people wanted healthier options, things with low-sugar or that fit into the paleo or keto diets. People wanted to try different ways of eating because they were cooking at home a lot more and didn’t want to have the same thing every night.
Tanner: In late May and early June, things changed a lot in NYC, especially because of the protests of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police. How did that affect your store?
Krupa: On June 1, our store was broken into. The window was shattered and products were trampled by people who were looking for energy drinks and bars further inside. It was sad for many reasons and this was a catalyst of change for us.
We closed for a day to clean up the glass and remove the damaged foods, and during that day, so many community members came to help us. Two little girls came with a sign that said, “We love The Goods Mart,” and some others helped us put up plywood in the window.
We wanted to find a way to elevate the topic of social injustice and make our voices heard, so we put a message out on social media asking if any artists wanted to paint something on the new plywood. One artist answered and he painted a mural with the words “Look out for each other” as the center piece.
Tanner: What’s the journey like for The Goods Mart, which is already a socially-conscious company, since then?
Krupa: Even before June 1, we started assessing the brands we have in our store. We’ve always been a voice for female-founded companies, but when when we took the 15 Percent Pledge, a pledge started by Aurora James calling for retailers to commit a minimum of 15 percent of shelf-space to black-owned businesses, we realized that only 3 out of our 200 brands within the store were black-founded. So we looked at our products, looked at the founders, and learned as much as we could about them. And now we’re trying to figure out how to represent everyone within our store. We’re at 18 black-founded brands and we want to continue to push that and find more.
In addition to the store, I also have a PR agency, which is helping to do press for these brands in our store to elevate them more. In addition, we’re working with incubators like Hot Bread Kitchen to find undiscovered brands that fit our store.
The biggest thing is talking to our customers and telling them the brand stories. If you give someone a fun fact about a product, they will most likely go on to tell others about it.
Tanner: How are you going to go about finding new products in the future?
Krupa: By continuing to do more research, attending virtual events, looking at what other brands are promoting, and asking people what we can do to get their products in store. It’s all about asking the question, “how can we help?” and trying to facilitate and connect the dots. Sometimes that’s the best way to be helpful.
from Industry Operations https://ift.tt/2WNeWFQ
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