The report describes a growing divide between the grocery industry’s treatment of L.A.’s high and low-income communities and charges that supermarket chains in the Los Angeles area are guilty of ignoring and mistreating the area’s low-income communities. The Alliance for Healthy and Responsible Grocery Stores is expected to call for citywide legislation that would create uniform standards for grocery operations in Los Angeles, ensuring that inner city neighborhoods receive equitable and fair treatment.

While not the first such report or study of it’s kind, “Feeding Our Communities” is an important report because it was produced by a coalition of community organizations and is based on the testimony of real people who experience the inequitable and unfair practices of the food retail industry first-hand. I’m hopeful that this report will not only result in important policy changes and improved practices of grocery operations in LA, but that the revelations of the report will create a ripple affect in other cities, such as Oakland, that are equally affected by this issue.

Special guest Chef Marc Swan of Local Flavors Catering created a lovely carrot soup with basil oil dripped on top and a vegetable frittata. Cook Jenny Pao of Nectar Essences inspired everyone to eat more beets and be healthier with her colorful red and golden beet salads. Back to Earth made three special appetizers: zucchini crostini with creme fraiche, mini corncakes with pickled cucumber, and a collard green wrapped dolma filled with rice and Bing cherries to go with a carrot dip. A “Flavors” favorite drink was a fresh mint and lime mojito mixed by bartender Brandon Solem along with other drinks like mint ice tea with ginger syrup, organic lemonade, goji mango juice and iced coffee from Adina Beverages.

Brahm gave an overview of People’s Grocery programs and Max Kurtz-Cadji, our Greenhouse Coordinator, paired everyone up for an interactive game about food and ecology and we learned that an inch of topsoil takes 102 years to be replaced after it’s been eroded away. Hubert McCabe, Farm Manager, gave a presentation about the new Grub Box Program and 6 people signed up to be Grub Box Sponsors on the spot.

If you’d like to come to the next “Flavors of the Garden” on Saturday, July 26 from 11am - 1pm at the 55th St. Garden, please email Victoria at “Victoria@peoplesgrocery.org” and let us know you are coming. Please bring your friends and family. We’d love to see you at the next one!

The Grub Box represents our attempt to bring innovation to the CSA model. The primary innovation in the Grub Box is that we’re connecting the West Oakland community to other communities in the East Bay to help solve the local need for fresh fruits and vegetables in West Oakland. Here’s the basic way it works:

Our production cost per Grub Box is about $18.

We sell the “Resident” Grub Box to low-income families and individuals in West Oakland for $12 - a $6 discount off of our production costs.

We sell the “Sponsor” Grub Box to families and individuals who live in the greater East Bay and are of able economic means for $24 - a $6 markup on our production costs.

The $6 markup from the Sponsors enables People’s Grocery to provide a $6 discount to the Residents. Our goal is to recruit one sponsor for every resident so that we break even on our costs. The Grub Box that is provided to either group is identical and of the highest quality and selection. People who subscribe to the Sponsor Grub are receiving a fair and competitive value for their payment - our Grub Box is as good in price, quality, quantity and selection as any CSA available on the Market. We’ve compared our Grub Box to every CSA in the region and our Grub Box stands the test.

However, our Sponsor Grub Box offers something that other CSAs don’t. While other CSAs offer the added-value of being able to support a local farm, our Grub Box offers the the added value of supporting our local farm AS WELL AS supporting a family in West Oakland to get fresh fruits and vegetables on a regular basis. It’s a win-win-win!

By connecting other East Bay communities to the West Oakland community we’re not only creating a unique economic arrangement …. we’re nurturing a powerful opportunity for creating bonds and bridges between communities that have historically been divided along class and racial lines.

And that is what is most compelling about the Grub Box - helping to facilitate long-overdue collaborations between people of different backgrounds to help solve long-standing health and economic problems. This is exactly the kind of innovation that People’s Grocery is trying to engender in the world - transformative change through relationships.

Click here to learn more about the Grub Box.
Click here to request more information about the Grub Box.
Click here to subscribe to the Grub Box.

While it is certainly true that issues of crime and safety are high in West Oakland, these same problems have been used in past as excuses for supermarket operators to not locate in the community. For this reason we at People’s Grocery believe that it is paramount that we create a food retail model that can navigate the problems of the inner-city through creative and community-based approaches to enabling a safe shopping environment where customers can enjoy themselves and where our business can thrive to support local jobs and provide benefit and value to the community.

We have built extensive ties and relationships in West Oakland over the last six years and have come to understand that successfully preventing theft in West Oakland depends on an approach that utilizes respectful and positive relationships as the basis for community engagement. We have experience doing this, especially back when we used to post the Mobile Market in some of the toughest and most notorious street corners in all of West Oakland. We were never robbed a single time during those four years. In fact, many of the same young people on the streets who are often characterized as “hoodlums” and “thugs” used to come on to the Mobile Market to buy fruits and juices. Some offered to watch our back if anyone caused any trouble.

Without being naive that our grocery store will face problems of crime and safety, we believe that we can use a similar approach based on our relationship, combined with smarter and more creative strategies, to engender safety for our customers, staff and community. Creating a safe environment is accomplished in various ways. Oakland recently approved spending $7.7 million to increase its police force. This is perhaps one way of creating more safety. Yet, many people question whether increased policing is enough to create a safe city, and advocate for more community involvement. Throughout the U.S., urban planners have focused attention on utilizing street design concepts to facilitate crime reduction through increasing street activity and creating an atmosphere of safety. These principles, reflected in Dean Brennan and Al Zelinka’s book, “SafeScape”, can work to compliment the City’s efforts, and help to bring about change.

People’s Grocery will utilize SafeScape Principles in our site design and planning process and will implement the following strategies:

–Allow for an open and active storefront
–Create outdoor seating area and programming
–Provide ample lighting on all sides of the property
–Coordinate group walks and bike rides to the store
–Offer free shuttle rides with a $25 purchase
–Utilize community policing resources
–Engage our community partners
–Provide ways for everyone to participate
–Increase pedestrian street activity

When the Subway fast food restaurant opened on 7th St in West Oakland it was robbed two days after it opened its doors to the public. Many have pointed to that incident as proof that West Oakland just isn’t safe for business. Yet few have taken the time to consider what underpinning factors may have led to Subway’s unfortunate targeting. One must ask: Does Subway convey a message of caring and responsibility to the community? Does Subway engage with the community in a way that provides exceptional value that all can recognize and appreciate? Does Subway substantively contribute to the economic needs of the community through living wage jobs and other forms of support? Does Subway have a history of meaningful involvement in the community?

In general, the answer to all of these questions is no. The perception of Subway by those who robbed it was more likely that Subway didn’t care about them, their lives and their future. So why should they care about Subway? I propose that it is this dynamic of being undervalued as a human being that leads one to commit crime. If we seek to engage in more dignified ways we may find some surprising results.

People’s Grocery is striving to create a different kind of grocery store - in every way possible. How we deal with and respond to crime and safety may become the defining characteristic of our legacy.

Skadden Arps: The largest law firm in the United States, attorneys of Skadden Arps are providing People’s Grocery with complete pro-bono legal counsel and services in all matters of business law, contract law, securities law, tax and personnel law.

Accenture and IBM Global Business Services: Consultants of Accenture and IBM are collaborating to provide People’s Grocery’s with pro-bono supply chain design and planning including the selection, installation, and customization of an Enterprise Resource Planning software.

Cushman & Wakefield: The world’s largest privately-held commercial real estate services firm is representing People’s Grocery in lease negotiation for its desired site.

Deloitte & Touche: A “big four” accounting and auditing firm, Deloitte & Touche may provide People’s Grocery with pro bono services to valuate the organization’s brand name, mark and goodwill. This valuation will facilitate a sales transfer of the People’s Grocery title to the new store.

United Natural Foods: The largest natural foods distributor in the United States currently provides People’s Grocery with a large discount and will support People’ Grocery’s new store by provide consultation from their new store development team, as well as facilitating relationships with a variety of food producers for special deals.

Veritable Vegetable: The nation’s oldest distributor of certified organic produce, Veritable Vegetable is considering providing People’s Grocery with its produce inventory at cost for the first 6 months.

Rainbow Grocery Cooperative: The oldest worker cooperative grocery store in San Francisco, Rainbow Grocery will provide six weeks of training and new work orientations to People’s Grocery’s workers in multiple aspects of the natural foods business.

New Seasons Market and PCC Natural Market: These two highly successful regional grocery chains in Portland and Seattle are providing People’s Grocery with free consultation, data and feedback. People’s Grocery staff have spent extensive time visiting both businesses over the last two years.

Plan Resonate: A growth management consulting firm based in San Francisco, Plan Resonate is providing significantly discounted services in business, financial, managerial and strategic planning.

CNBC’s “Street Signs” ran a “Green Collar Economy” series this week. People’s Grocery was featured on the April 23rd show, entitled “Growing Green”. Click here to check it out.

The Sundance Channel is running a new show called “The Good Fight”. Click here to listen to a 35 minute podcast interview about People’s Grocery.

Local Bay Area channel KRON 4 will run a segment on Bay Area Backroads about urban farming which will feature People’s Grocery. The show will air on Saturday May 3 and Sunday May 4 (same show both days) at 6pm.

I have to confess that I have since shifted my thinking about Fresh & Easy quite dramatically from the time when I wrote that post. As we have gotten to better understand People’s Grocery’s own business model and positioning (as well as current allegations being made that the majority of Fresh & Easy’s stores in Los Angeles, Arizona and Nevada are falling short of sales goals by as much as 70%) I have gained a confidence that we can actually compete with Fresh & Easy very well. In fact, I now welcome the opportunity for People’s Grocery to compete with Fresh & Easy as a way of contrasting the economic and social impact of multi-national corporations, and the global economy upon which they thrive, to the impact of locally-owned and operated businesses on local economies and communities.

The key breakthrough in my thinking about Fresh & Easy came from a number of visits I made to food stores in other regions that are strongly competing with bigger players like Whole Foods and Kroger. These mission-driven companies have built their strength and positioning on unique competitive advantages that set them apart from the large corporations — advantages that those large corporations simply can not create themselves.

So while Fresh & Easy will certainly have competitive advantages that People’s Grocery can not replicate (industry knowledge, scale, global supply chains, technologies, political influence, capital), People’s Grocery also has a set of competitive advantages that Fresh & Easy can not replicate either (community relations, values, local knowledge and experience, brand and story, customer and brand loyalty, local supply chains, cultural positioning). The way we will compete with Fresh & Easy is to differentiate our business based on the unique value, experience and relationships that we offer to our community, which are qualities that Fresh & Easy is unsuccessfully trying to create.

Another reason that I now see Fresh & Easy’s entrance into our market area as a having a potential upside for People’s Grocery is that sometimes a larger corporate player can actually grow the overall market to provide more business opportunity for smaller businesses in the same industry. Starbucks is a good example of this. While on the one hand Starbucks has most certainly hurt local coffee shops, it has also grown the gourmet coffee market dramatically, which has been a boon for other small coffee shops.

Whole Foods is another example. While Whole Foods is often criticized for destroying independent natural food stores, the company has also been instrumental in the dramatic growth in the overall organic food industry, which has benefited those independent stores that have survived. San Francisco-based Rainbow Grocery Cooperative’s extraordinary growth over the last two decades, averaging about 15% a year, has been a great example of this.

Fresh & Easy may in fact engender a similar opportunity for smaller food retailers. Fresh & Easy is pursuing a strategy of opening smaller format stores of 10,000-15,000 square feet. This is spurring competitors like Whole Foods and Walmart to begin designing their own small format stores. People’s Grocery too will benefit from the emergence and acceptance of small format stores as this is exactly the business model that we have been planning for.

I guess the lesson I’ve learned is that there’s always an upside to everything. It’s also a lesson that we small players have our own strength to stand on and value to offer in a world of giant corporations.

The question for me about Slow Food is less whether it’s elitist or snobbish, but whether it’s relevant to people of diverse economic and/or cultural backgrounds. A lot of people don’t feel there is sufficient economic and racial diversity in Slow Food to engender it as a true movement and that the lifestyle and cultural renaissance that Slow Food advocates is not accessible to people of less privilege, income, etc. This is certainly true for us at People’s Grocery as our experience is that people living in low-income communities and communities of color aren’t compelled by, or even aware, of what Slow Food is doing. This is not to say that Slow Food isn’t trying to engender a more inclusive and multicultural movement. But such issues will continue to engender criticism, some of it fair and some of it not fair at all.

Perhaps, when criticized in these ways, Slow Food should not just strive to defend itself from criticism but also acknowledge where its movement is trying to grow and change. Being transparent and open about such challenges and the efforts made will help shift perceptions/criticisms of Slow Food to give it more of a chance of offering meaning to many more people and creating a transformative revolution greater in magnitude and scope. This would be a courageous act on Slow Foods part and would significantly increase the respect it was given by food justice organizations striving to address inequities in the food system. As in all matters regarding undoing social and economic inequality, the first step to becoming an ally to people of color and low-income communities is to acknowledge the privilege one has and the ways one contributes to the perpetuation of inequity. In its effort to connect with communities of color, as well as increase their participation at the Slow Food Nation conference, Slow Food would do very well to make such acknowledgements.

Last week, the People’s Grocery film produced by the Global Oneness Project was featured on Karma Tube as the video of the week. This video has also been licensed to two TV networks, Link TV and Starfish media. .

New Seasons is quite possibly one of the most innovative and inspiring food retail companies in the country. Almost every good thing that you could imagine a grocery store doing is being done by New Seasons. From the best employee compensation packages in the industry (they give 20% of after-tax profits to the workers) to the greenest waste management practices (they provide 13% of the city’s compost input) to engaging customer education (they have three full-time nutritionists on staff) New Seasons Market holds the highest standard of what a grocery store can do for a community.

I was able to meet with just about everyone in the company from the CEO and CFO to store managers, buyers and clerks. I got to shadow the CEO and sat in on a number of great meetings with him that helped me understand New Seasons’ philosophy and way of doing business. The experience was intimate and special. I got to see the heart and soul of this company and ended my week feeling truly inspired. While I’ve always been passionate about our vision for People’s Grocery’s food retail business, my experience at New Seasons Market gave me confidence that our vision is a real possibility.

My gratitude to everyone at New Seasons Market who generously shared their time, knowledge and hearts with me. And thanks to Leaderspring for supporting this inspiring journey.