By Mel Braverman, Jeanie Wells 177 March-April 2015 Almost every cooperative retail grocery is feeling increased competition in its community. Twenty years ago, merely having featured products consistently available was enough for co-ops to be successful, but this is no longer an option. In the last few years, not only has the conventional industry become smarter operators of its natural/organic sets, we have also [...]
By Michael Healy When it comes to numbers and data, context matters. The context in which we place particular numbers helps us make meaning of those numbers, and this is particularly important when we are talking about financial data. Over many generations, managers and accountants have developed financial reporting tools that help them do their jobs. Balance sheets, income/expense (aka profit/loss) statements, and [...]
By Thane Joyal, Mark Goehring 173 July - August 2014 Loss prevention is a key piece of the retail grocery business. Co-op managers are aware of this at their level and manage against it every day, but everyone in the cooperative needs to pay attention to the possibility. Board members: don’t be complacent. There are myriad ways to steal from a grocery store: at the [...]
By Michael Feiner, Paul Feiner 170 January - February 2014 Food co-ops may be some of the best-intentioned enterprises across the retail spectrum. They are guided by core values of shared responsibility, environmental stewardship, support for more equitable communities, and conscious consumption; it’s hard to imagine a more mindful and ethical social venture. Yet even the best intentions do not make a co-op immune [...]
By Jeanie Wells 168 September-October 2013 Has your co-op considered Open Book Management? Chances are that even if you haven’t implemented it but have attended a food co-op conference in the past three years, you have heard talk about Open Book Management. That’s because it has been slowly but steadily catching fire throughout the North American food co-op sector. Some stores are having great [...]
Have you ever found yourself losing all interest in the job you used to love? Instead of feeling energized by your success, do you find yourself unfocused, disengaged and exhausted by the thought of work each day? You might be experiencing burnout, defined by psychologist Herbert Freundenberger as “a state of fatigue brought about by devotion to a cause, a way of life or [...]
Transparency in management implies openness, communication and accountability. One powerful transparent practice is Open Book Management. By teaching staff members about the financial health of the business, managers invite them into the conversation about strengthening the financial bottom line. Just Food Co-op, a community-owned natural foods retailer in Northfield, Minn., opened its doors in 2004. Once it successfully navigated the initial challenges that every [...]
