Deli management, Part 3: Systems To Stay On Track In All Seasons
Timing is key to any recipe. Cook things too long and they burn. Wait too long to add an ingredient, and it may not cook all the way. Before you prepare to cook a new recipe, you give yourself ample time for the work of reading the recipe directions, cutting, chopping, and measuring ingredients. That way, when the beautiful chaos of cooking begins, you’re prepared for each step in the process.
Financial Dashboards Field Guide: Focusing on Key Indicators
A dashboard can help boards of directors pay attention monthly to key indicators of financial health. This dashboard review can occur in between the quarterly monitoring reports on the board’s "financial conditions" policy. A dashboard is intended to supplement, not replace, monitoring reports; those reports are the place for more detailed information about the key indicators and the longer-term trends.
CBLD Field Guide: Handling Board Resignations
Over the years I have worked with and served on governing boards, I have observed many director resignations, some sudden and unexpected, others more drawn-out and planned; some fiery and dramatic, and others typically routine. I myself resigned from a board I had served on for many years!
Meet Molly Phipps: Putting Her Passions to Work
Molly Phipps, welcomed to the Columinate consultant team in 2023, has centered her career around three key passions: food, people, and the natural environment. As a result, this warm and analytical cooperator’s resume exhibits an eye-catching variety of job titles, including evaluation and research associate, farmer’s market manager, board member, and lab manager. The breadth of Phipps’ experience and her leadership in planning/evaluating strategy are sure to generate a positive impact for co-ops in the grocery industry as well as for resident-owned communities in manufactured home parks.
A Healthy Deli, Part 2: Evaluating the food service department
Tomlin’s on-site evaluation of the deli department and the existing conditions helps to set a baseline for what is working and what systems need to be adjusted or created. Her experience both in kitchens and as a general manager (GM) herself gives her the ability to translate what she sees to what the GM needs to learn to see. “It can be small things that tell you big things. Is silverware stocked? If not, that means the deli (staff) hasn’t come out to refresh the salad bar in a while,” Tomlin explains.
Caring and Connection: Examples from history show the heart of cooperatives
The feeling of safety and belonging are also common needs and aspirations. It is why solidarity is a core cooperative value. A cooperative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and/or cultural needs and/or aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise. —International Cooperative Alliance Statement of the Cooperative Identity
Retail Grocery Trends Facing Leaders Right Now
Heading into 2024, grocery retailers need to understand the trends they face in today's marketplace. Being a leader in an independent grocery store has always been difficult. Our business model itself is brutal, and the competitive landscape is fierce. Adding to the difficult business climate, the pandemic brought with it additional crises—many of which we are still navigating as business leaders—that intensified the pressure on independent grocers’ performance.
General Manager Support for Deli Departments
Columinate consultant Dana Tomlin specializes in supporting deli departments and making sure general managers have the knowledge and confidence to oversee successful programs and systems long-term. Learning the complexities, language, rhythms, and pitfalls within your deli can make a huge difference in performance and consistency. Deli departments need to put out product in abundance and quality that meets customer expectations across staffing changes, daily chaos, and product availability.
Columinate Learn: Applying Principle 5 in the Digital Divide
Ready for digital literacy Co-ops have a lot of teaching to do. To build a cooperative ecosystem with knowledgeable and invested stakeholders aware of what it is they have become a part of, it takes a lot of orienting, sharing, demonstrating, and educating. A cooperative can fail if it does not consistently apply Co-op Principle 5: Education, Training, and Information. Lack of strong education systems within a co-op culture can slowly erode its core.
What We’ve Been Learning About Creative Destruction
Within our organizations, we spend much time trying to do more and add on to things, in an effort to feel like we’re making progress. We have more money, let’s hire more staff! Not enough people from the neighborhood are shopping, let’s offer a new benefit. We got in trouble for not carrying an East African staple in our grocery store, now we have so many that we are a new competitor to the East African market on the other side of town. We add, add, and add.