Columinate's Manager on Contract and Interim General Manager services can be a game-changer for food co-ops and community-focused independent grocery retailers. In this report and in following weeks, we will highlight Columinate consultants working as managers on contract. After an introduction, here we highlight Wynston Estis and her work at Ocean Beach People's Organic Food Market in San Diego.
Columinate's Manager on Contract and Interim General Manager services can be a game-changer for food co-ops and community-focused independent grocery retailers. In this report and in following weeks, we will highlight Columinate consultants working as managers on contract. Featured here, following our summary of these programs, is Garland McQueen at Lovettsville Cooperative Market, which is planning to open in late August 2023.
Sarah Lebherz passionately stewards the cooperative business model as a seasoned cooperator with deep roots in her home town. Equipped with years of financial management and expansion project expertise, she has found fresh purpose in pro forma and budget development with colleagues at Columinate.
Early in the movie Argo, Ben Affleck’s character Tony Mendez describes the dangers of rescuing the American hostages. He tells the assembled government decision-makers: You don’t want to be in a position of needing to sneak people out of a hostile country, but if you are, you use a professional.
Even though board members are elected by the co-op’s members, how often do they interact personally with owners, shoppers, and future owners? For many board members, the answer is, “Not often enough.” Providing basic customer service training to board members is a simple way to increase the quality and frequency of those interactions.
The Progressive Grocer Top Women in Grocery (TWIG) is a prestigious award giving industry recognition to grocery retail leadership, and this year's list includes one of Columinate's own, Rebecca Torpie. TWIG awards are granted annually to a generous number of women in a huge and diverse industry, from team leaders and store managers to senior executives. The 2022 awards were announced in June 2023.
Sometimes the road to Columinate is a direct line, and sometimes it’s a leisurely path with many twists and turns. For Lisa Malmarowski and Pam Mehnert of Flying Squirrel Milwaukee LLC, joining Columinate has been a logical extension of the work each of them has been doing at Outpost Natural Foods in Milwaukee. They have been sharing their skills with fellow cooperators for years, putting into practice the cooperative principles of education and cooperation among cooperatives.
You can compare your co-op’s general manager (GM) compensation with over 100 others in the Columinate Compensation Database. And the more co-ops that use the database, the more useful this tool will be for all co-ops. If a co-op GM has not already registered for the database, they can do so by going to compensation.columinate.coop and following the prompts. If the co-op is a member of NCG, database registration is free.
Independent grocers and co-ops face formidable challenges to survival, from WalMart to dollar stores, while often lacking the resources they need. Columinate's Jeanie Wells is providing these retail operations with essential skills and tools. At the June 2023 CCMA conference, Wells' Mighty Community Markets (MCM) training program was held up to its national audience as an outstanding example of cooperative innovation and achievement. (Go [...]
Ari Derfel has been advocating for natural and organic foods for the past few decades. He’s been translating his personal values of sustainability and food justice into business practices.
