[Upbeat theme music plays]
Female Voice Over (00:01):
Welcome to the Triple Bottom Line, where we reveal how today’s business leaders are reaching a new level of success with a people-planet-profit approach. And here is your host, Taylor Martin!
Taylor Martin (00:17):
Welcome to the Triple Bottom Line. Today, we have John Roesser as our guest. He is the General Manager of Weavers Way. It is a co-op in Philadelphia that is about 1 out of 185 co-ops around the United States. You may think that's a lot, but there are a ton of grocery stores out there, and co-ops are only a portion of those. The things that co-ops do, I think, have enormous lessons to teach us. John, can you tell our listeners a little bit more about you, your background, and Weavers Way?
John Roesser (00:56):
Thank you for having me, Taylor. My name is John Roesser. I'm the General Manager of Weavers Way cooperative association here in Philadelphia. As you say, we are one of many consumer-owned food cooperatives around the United States. I've worked for Weavers Way for 12 years. For 6 years, I've served as the co-op's general manager. My background prior to being in the co-op world is corporate America. I'm sort of decamped from corporate America [laughs]. I have a background in for-profit business that helps me with the work that I do here but, also, I've learned a great deal about an alternative economic model working for a consumer cooperative for the last a decade plus.
Taylor Martin (01:48):
I always wonder if people, when they see like a co-op grocery store, if they even understand the differences between a co-op grocery store and a regular grocery store. Could you kind of fill people in on the differences between the two?
John Roesser (02:01):
We get it all the time. People walk into one of our stores for the first time, and the first thing they say is, "Am I allowed to shop here?" There's a lot of confusion around that word 'co-op.' Fundamentally, in terms of the grocery stores that we operate, in terms of the day-to-day operation, they don't look a whole lot different than any other grocery store that you're going to walk into. We have produce and bakery and deli and all the other things you would expect a grocery store would have. The experience is largely the same. The real fundamental difference between us and everybody else that sells groceries is our ownership structure. We are owned by the people who shop in our stores, and you don't have to be an owner of a co-op to shop in the store. We follow a cooperative ownership model in which literally thousands and thousands of households have an equal share ownership of our business, and they are our stakeholders. They own the business not for profit. In other words, they're not looking for a return on their investment. The business exists to meet their needs as consumers.
Taylor Martin (03:15):
That's interesting, that last point, because I can dive a little bit deeper in that I'm a member of my co-op here in Austin, Texas. One of the things that they're always doing is listening. They are constantly asking us, "What new products do you want? What do you like and what do you don't like?” They will try different products, put it on the shelf, and they'll give it a try and see if other people like it. They're getting all the feedback from the people that own it, that are members. I feel like that provides a better shopping experience for me. When I go to get ketchup, let's say- my son loves ketchup- I buy some ketchup. There's only like two or three brands. At my co-op, I look at the ingredients on those things, and they're pretty good. I don't have to worry about getting ketchups that are not really good for my son. They're mostly organic. The co-op talks about how they're not really an organic store, but they have way more organic produce than any grocery store that I know of. I think that the main thing I'm hearing, when I hear you say that, is that you're listening to your audiences. You're listening to your consumers, even though they are technically owners, right?
John Roesser (04:28):
It transcends the more typical consumer retailer relationship where a good retailer listens to their consumers and modifies their product mix accordingly. Ours is a step beyond that because you're actually talking to the owners of the enterprise, and so they have a voice that goes beyond just being a consumer. They are a member. They are an owner.
Taylor Martin (04:56):
I know it's still a business, so I know you have some organizational programs and things like that that you have to instill to keep your business running and afloat. Can you tell about some best success stories and add some information there about what you think made them successful?
John Roesser (05:15):
Sure. We are a business like any other selling groceries to people, and so we are subject to the market forces that any business would be subject to. We have to put out a really great product for people to continue to shop at our stores, less they be persuaded to go to the competition. Part of that is what are we doing differently than everybody else that is selling groceries out there? The big thing for us is our focus on locally grown and locally produced foods, and we do it in a way that really nobody else can it.
A lot of the corporate grocery stores pay a little lip service to this, but the reality is that we have quite literally hundreds of local food producers and food growers that we deal with directly. We serve as the critical link between those growers and producers and the consumers in the Philadelphia marketplace who are looking for those products. What it means is for people who are looking for those products, they will literally drive past another grocery store in order to get to Weavers Way because of the exceptional quality of our products and because they are locally grown and locally produced. That's the big thing.
Beyond that, one thing that we are very excited about, which is directly tied to our environmental bottom line, is we're really trying to push a program to reduce the amount of single use plastic that we sell in our stores. I don't need to tell you that single use plastic in grocery stores is just ubiquitous. It's everywhere. We are guilty, too. You walk through the aisles that Weavers Way, and you see plenty of single use plastic and it bothers us. We know that there is a demand for alternatives. Earlier this year, we started the first phase of a multi-phase process to offer consumers products in returnable containers, either in glass containers or in multi-use plastic containers. The price of the item itself is exactly the same as if you were buying it in a single use container, but you pay a deposit on the container that then comes back to us. You get the deposit back when you return it to us. The container goes through our commercial grade dishwasher that kills everything and then sanitizes everything, and then we can reuse that container. We started with soup, so you can now have the option to buy soup in both a single use plastic container and a glass jar that you pay a deposit on once you get back when you return the glass jar. We've introduced some bulk items, and the next thing is we're going to be introducing some prepared foods items and eventually meat and seafood. We want to get to the point in the next year or so where if you want to, you can shop in the store and not have to buy anything that comes in a single use plastic container. That's something that we're excited about. Again, as a triple bottom line business, that's directly taking on the challenge of reducing single use plastics, which is such a problem for us environmentally.
Taylor Martin (08:35):
I agree. I want that. I think tons of people what that. It just seems like such a Herculean effort. When you guys set out to do that, was it as overwhelming as I would think it to be? It seems like a lot of the manufacturers’ products that you are selling, they have their issues with being able to package their food. How does that work out?
John Roesser (09:06):
It is Herculean. Even the first hurdle was just getting the consent of the Philadelphia Department of Health to basically waive some of the requirements that they have put in place for good reasons to keep consumers safe, but the industry reacted to health guidelines by just wrapping everything in plastic. We had to untangle some of that and get what amounts to a variance from the Philadelphia Department of Health to allow us to do this program. So, that was the first step. The second step is, for example, if you're going to buy 2,000 glass soup containers, where do you put them? [laughs] And where do they go when the consumer brings them back for the deposit? What's the process for inspecting them to make sure that there aren't any chips or whatever? Yeah, it's a little labor intensive. It certainly breaks whatever pattern all of us were in, which we fell into- all of us- fell into over the course of many decades to rely on this single use plastic. It does require sort of a hard stop to say, "Okay. How can I modify my behavior as a consumer in a way that's going to be awkward at first in order to be able to change my lifestyle so that I can reduce my own personal environmental footprint and be a better grocery shopper?" I think that it requires effort on the part of the retailer and on the part of the shopper.
Taylor Martin (10:48):
I agree. Both parties have to do that dance to make sure that it's accepted. I'm very impressed with the fact that you guys did go over those hurdles because I cannot imagine how many there must have been and the ones that you're going to have in front of you. Now, when it comes to produce food, it always interests me: how do farmers deal with that dance of certain foods come in at different seasons and different programming and offering of each store? How does that work? How do you manage that?
John Roesser (11:20):
That is really one of the departments where you see the friction in our bottom lines really in a very pronounced way. Again, if you're going to operate in the competitive marketplace, that means you have to operate full-service grocery stores 12 months of the year. A full-service grocery store 12 months a year in Philadelphia means where are you getting your blueberries from in January? You're not getting them from local farmers. Those blueberries that we sell on our shelves in January here in Philadelphia have come from very, very far away. In all likely, they've come from South America, Chile, or somewhere else in South America. Think about the environmental footprint of getting those blueberries onto the shelves here at the co-op in January. They've got to be harvested, trucked to a port, put on a boat that goes through the Panama Canal. It works its way up to the port of Philadelphia and then it gets unloaded and trucked to a wholesaler, and then it gets trucked to a retailer and eventually it gets on our shelves. You think about the fossil fuels that are required, the single use plastic that's required often. Often, these are conventional products, so you're talking about pesticides that are necessary in the process. The environmental costs of blueberries in January in Philadelphia is extraordinary. If we wanted to, we could make the very conscious business decision to say, "Guess what? In Philadelphia in January, we don't sell blueberries because the environmental impact is simply too great." The trouble with that is, again, getting back to the competitive marketplace. Just because the co-op decides we're not going to sell blueberries in January, everybody else is still selling them. A lot of our members who are owners of the enterprise, they say, "Listen, I get the environmental impact, but I got two kids at home and they barely eat their fruit and vegetables as is. The blueberries are the one thing that they like, and I don't want to have to go to another store to buy my blueberries. I want to buy my blueberries at my store." We do deal with that. That's an example of the community bottom line and the environmental bottom line friction between those two bottom lines. We do make compromises when it comes to that sort of thing and you do see it in the produce department, probably just about more so than anyone else.
Taylor Martin (13:48):
Speaking of produce department, am I correct in understanding that you guys have your own farm that you make produce? You grow food?
John Roesser (13:58):
Yeah. We operate our own farm. It is the largest farm in the city of Philadelphia. That in itself isn't saying a whole lot. There aren't a lot of big farms in Philadelphia. It's about 5 acres. We made the very deliberate, strategic business decision about 5 years ago that we were going to be not only in the business of selling food but in the business of growing food. Five or 6 of my colleagues are professional farmers. That's what they do for a living. Our farms are integral to our business model. They do supply our stores with produce in-season. There are limits to that, obviously. For starters, it's a relatively small farm operation and also seasonality, and also just where we are in terms of our geography. We're not growing our own bananas here in Philadelphia no matter what time of year it is. Our farms are definitely integral to our operation; however, in order for us to operate full-service produce departments 12 months of the year, it obviously means we have to bring in a lot of produce from other sources, too.
Taylor Martin (15:13):
I don't know the answer to this, but do you know how many co-ops actually have their own farm like this? Because I was kind of pleasantly shocked that you guys were actually doing that.
John Roesser (15:25):
I don't know any that have their own farm. There's some co-ops that have community gardens that they may keep.
Taylor Martin (15:31):
Yeah. Right.
John Roesser (15:31):
I don't think there are any other co-ops out there that support like a full-blown farm operation like we do. That's a triple bottom line consideration. The farm itself as a business unit of our larger organization does not make profit in itself. There's usually a relatively small loss at the farm, which is covered by operating profit from the retail operations. This allows our farm to operate in a sustainable model because the people who run our farm operation do their very best to run it as financially viable as possible, but they don't have to worry about if at the end of the day they have a $5,000 or $10,000 or $15,000 loss because that loss can be covered by the larger organization.
Taylor Martin (16:25):
Right. That makes sense. You mentioned community gardens. I see a lot of those around town, and I think those are great. But talking about community, how do each one of your point of presence, your different stores, how do they interact with the community? I think dealing with community in a business context is always something every business needs to understand. It's part of the people part of the triple bottom line. Could you elaborate on that in terms of how you guys immerse yourselves in the communities that you serve?
John Roesser (16:58):
A good grocery store, regardless of ownership structure, serves as a community anchor. If it's a well-run grocery store, if it's a pleasant shopping experience and everything else, it improves the community it's in. It becomes, in effect, a community amenity. Now, really good grocery stores go a step beyond that and sometimes that manifests itself in like sponsoring local little league teams and whatnot. There's really a step that goes beyond both of those and that is: is your grocery store a community third place? Is it a place where people in the community go to feel community connection? The concept of a community third place is: what are the places in your community that make it a community? It could be a barbershop. It could be a coffee shop. It could be a library or a park, or most definitely it could be a grocery store. So, the grocery store is the place that becomes the community hub.
So, what can grocery stores do? One thing that we did before the pandemic, that we've had to put on hold and it's killing me and I can't wait to be able to start it up again, is in one of our stores, we were doing a community dinner on Friday nights. We called it $4 Friday. For 4 bucks, you got whatever the protein was. There was always an animal protein and a vegan protein option and two side dishes, usually a starch and a vegetable for $4. Super cheap. We didn't make any money on the community dinners, but the community dinners allowed us to kind of open up the doors to the co-op to anyone who wanted to come in. For 4 bucks, you got more food than you could possibly get anywhere else for 4 bucks. We set up tables in the freezer aisles and the grocery aisles, wherever we could jam tables in. On a slow Friday night, we were getting 400 to 450 people. Sometimes we'd get as many as 650 people coming in. Whenever we wanted to get a big crowd, we always did pulled pork because our pulled pork is really good. Our executive chef makes this awesome vegan pulled pork that is just out of sight. People would just come from miles around. So, whenever we wanted to get 600 plus people, we would do the pulled pork night. That was always a big hit. That is an example of us behaving in a way that traditional grocery stores didn't really have to behave. But in this changing dynamic of the grocery world where more and more people are buying their groceries online through Amazon or whatever, brick and mortar grocery stores have to be more than just about selling groceries. They really do have to be community hubs.
Taylor Martin (20:00):
I can't agree with you more. I mentioned I have a co-op that I go to here in Austin, Texas. It's called Wheatsfield Co-op. When we moved here, I remember them back in the day. I grew up in Austin and when I went there, I was like, "Oh, man. This is great. They have this. They have that." They have all these different things that I like that I usually have to search out to find, as I mentioned earlier like the ketchup. I look around, and I just realize it's like home. This is the place I want to go shopping to. Period. Full stop. We probably do 95% or more of our shopping at that store alone. I think there's only 2 locations here in Austin. I'll drive clear across town if I have to go. Luckily, it's not that far from my home. When I go in there... It's actually kind of corny, but they actually play music that I really like. I think the general manager there is really into music, and I feel like he and I are similar in age. He's always got good music on, and my wife loves music so we're always laughing about the music that's playing. If she's in a different aisle, we jump up and we look at each other. We're both singing the same song. [John laughs] I know it's silly. They also did a dinner night, and it was something really around what you were talking about. They didn't have the near numbers that you had. Wow! There's was more over a day, like it was on a Tuesday or something like that, but it was really beneficial.
Really, the underlying thing we're talking about here is that sense of community. Sometimes brands, whether you're selling a widget or a service, coming in experimenting and spending your time and your energy and your life with a brand, whether it's a grocery store or something else, I think that's something that needs to be valued more. And I think what this dinner night that you're talking about is a perfect example of that. You're really looking at your customers, even though I know that yours are actual owners. You're looking at the community as a whole and saying, "How can I best serve them, interact with them, and create that wonderful community around the company, the brand?" I think it's great.
One other thing that I wanted to talk about is that sometimes I'll be online. I'll be on social media, and I'll see these European stores, these little pop-up stores, where they're trying to have zero waste, like the single use plastics you mentioned, anything like that where you have to go in there with your own jars or you buy the jars and you bring them back, or you bring your own paper bags or they might have in there. Did you have to reach out to any organizations like that or to see what other companies are doing to get that program moving for you guys or was it just like you guys started with nothing and just built it all yourself?
John Roesser (22:48):
No. You're right to point out sort the European model. A lot of this has gained more traction in Europe than it has here. I'm not sure what the chalk that up to, but certainly there's a lot of examples that we've been able to research online of some grocery stores in Europe that have done wonders when it comes to moving towards zero waste. The starting point for me is always recognizing that as a food retailer, we are part of an amazing food system that is just environmentally unsustainable. It is an amazing food system that, and we should acknowledge that fact. It's a system that needs to be modified from within and so it starts with us as a retailer saying, "Okay. Since we are part of this chain that goes from food growers and producers to transportation companies and wholesalers to retailers to consumers, and we're all part of the problem. What can we do?”
My feeling on this is a retailers' single biggest contribution in terms of improving our environmental footprint is helping our consumers find ways to reduce their environmental footprint, giving them more options to able to shop zero waste. As envisioned, this program that we just got started in April... By the way, this program was about to launch, I kid you not, in March 2020 right when the pandemic hit. We were delayed by over a year. In April 2021, we had the phase of this plastic reduction initiative with the soup containers. Our goal is to get to a point, perhaps a year from now, where it's relatively easy for you to come into a Weavers Way with your own containers, with your own bags, and shop without having to buy anything that comes in container that needs to be landfilled or recycled or even composted. There's a way to do that. Again, it starts with you as the consumer saying, "This is the kind of consumer I want to be, and I want to seek out a grocer that will help me be that kind of consumer."
An example of one item that is incredibly problematic- you just think about this- seltzer water. Seltzer water is just one product in a grocery store, and we sell oceans of seltzer water in one-liter, single use plastic bottles. Last year, I think we sold 45,000 of these. And we're just a small food co-op, so you can imagine how many hundreds of thousands or millions a corporate grocery chain is selling of these things. It's seltzer water [laughs]. It's water that has CO2 injected into it and put it into a plastic bottle. More often than not those plastic bottles wind up in the ocean or landfilled or whatever. We have to figure out a way to get single use plastic seltzer bottles out of the co-op, but we can't do that until we can offer consumers an alternative. In other words, we can't just decide tomorrow to take them out because what's the option? The only option we're giving people is go somewhere else to buy it. We want to get to the point where something like that, there is something that we're doing. We haven't run the numbers on something like this, but could we purchase our own CO2 machine that would allow us to filter tap water and then put CO2 into it, and then put it in a glass bottle that we would sell to the consumer. Again, they would pay a deposit on the bottle that they would get when they bring back. Something like that could work. Once we have something like that, then we can say goodbye to the single use plastic bottles.
Taylor Martin (27:01):
Again, that's one product. [laughs]
John Roesser (27:03):
One product.
Taylor Martin (27:03):
It's like when I look at a package. I'm always reverse engineering. How it was designed, how the marketing strategy and all that stuff works. But also think, "Okay. Where did the raw materials of this product come from?" It's always in the fine print somewhere if it's post-consumer waste or something like that of how was made. You obviously have been working at this tirelessly. I have to give you my hands up and a big clapping of all the effort that you guys have been doing. I know it's a team effort. Seriously! But I also hope that a lot of the other co-ops are learning from these because I know there's so many things that they could instill into their co-ops. Hopefully, the co-ops could make more change grow throughout other grocery stores and things like that because I want exactly everything you're talking about. I would love to get rid of the single use plastic. I don't want to be jaded, but sometimes when I read these statistics about the percentage numbers of how much we put in the recycling bin actually gets recycled, it's a little disheartening. I want a hundred percent of it to be recycled. I want to say thank you for everything you do. Thank you for being on the show today. I tell you, the next time I'm in Philadelphia, I'm going to check out 1 of the 4 stores. I'll give you a call when I'm up there. I would love to actually go out and see your farm if you guys do tours out there.
John Roesser (28:36):
Sure. I would be thrilled to show you around.
Taylor Martin (28:39):
I would love that. How can other people reach out to you or Weavers Way and get to follow what you guys are doing or to know more about you guys?
John Roesser (28:50):
If you're in the Philadelphia area, stop by one of our stores in Mt. Airy, Chestnut Hill or Ambler, or come by one of our farms in Roxborough or Germantown. If you're not in the area, our website is www.weaversway.coop, and you can learn all about what we do. There's some links there that can help you find a food co-op in your community. If you're Austin, absolutely. It's easy. Go check out the amazing Wheatsfield Co-op. Most cities and towns have a co-op relatively close by.
Taylor Martin (29:29):
Awesome. I can't agree with you more. I'm so glad you guys put that little feature in there so people can find a co-op where they live. That's freaking fantastic. John, thank you, again so much for being on today's show. I really hope people out there have learned a lot about co-ops and maybe if they weren't a member, maybe they might be encouraged to go check out a local co-op and get to know more about them and join their local co-op community.
John Roesser (29:56):
That would be awesome.
Taylor Martin (29:56):
John, again, thank you so much, sir. I wish you all the success that you well deserve.
John Roesser (30:03):
Thank you, Taylor. Thank you very much.
[Upbeat theme music plays]
Female Voice Over (30:06):
Thanks for tuning into the Triple Bottom Line. Your host, Taylor Martin, is founder and Chief Creative of Design Positive, a strategic branding and accessibility agency. Interested in being interviewing on our podcast? Then visit designpositive.co and fill out our contact form. If you enjoyed today’s podcast, we would appreciate a review on Apple podcasts or whatever provider you are logging in from. This podcast is prepared by Design Positive and is not associated with any other entity. We look forward to having you back for another installment of the Triple Bottom Line.