February 2015
BUSINESS
The Southwest Portland Post • 7
Local grocery co-op seeks national
advice to bolster business
By Janet Goetze
The Southwest Portland Post
Food Front, the co-op grocery store, has brought in a national team of advisors to help
bolster business. (Photo courtesy of Yelp)
Tryon-Stephens Headwaters
(Continued from Page 3)
street improvements for residential streets
in combination with stormwater plans.
“These have all been identified in the
Stephens Creek Stormwater System
Plan,” Igarta said. “It’s all on the city’s
Web site.”
Introducing new street improvements
in this part of the city requires addressing
critical stormwater issues.
It will analyze a set of improvement
options by integrating street
improvements with stormwater
solutions. Finally, the plan will identify
primary active transportation networks
within the study area.
“Portland’s bureaus of transportation
and environmental services will
coordinate our investments,” Igarta
concluded.
The Community Involvement Plan is
the guiding document for conducting
community outreach, soliciting citizen
participation, and gathering input into
the development of the Tryon-Stephens
Headwaters Neighborhood Street Plan.
The two bureaus will develop the plan
by next June.
The project is partially funded by
a grant from the Transportation and
Growth Management program, a joint
initiative of the Oregon Department
of Transportation and the Oregon
Department of Land Conservation and
Development.
At press time, an open house soliciting
community input was scheduled to be held
Jan. 26 at the Stephen’s Creek Crossing
housing development. For the results of
that gathering, as well as other information
about this plan, please contact Denver
Igarta at (503) 823-1088 or denver.igarta@
portlandoregon.gov.
Food Front, the co-op grocery store
facing financial declines and employee
complaints, has called in national
consultants to help bolster its business
in both Northwest Portland and the
Hillsdale Town Center.
Managers asked the National Co-op
Grocers, formed more than 15 years
ago by cooperatives, to send in a
development advisor and an assessment
team that has spent more than three
weeks in Portland.
Peg Nolan will be in Portland for
four to six months as a development
advisor from a subsidiary of the national
grocers’ group. The subsidiary expects
to continue advising Food Front over
the next two years, said C.E. Pugh,
chief operating officer of National Co-
op Grocers.
“What you are experiencing, most of
the country is experiencing right now,”
Pugh told a co-op members’ meeting
Jan. 22 at Friendly House, a community
service center about four blocks from
Food Front at 2375 NW Thurman Street.
The Hillsdale store is at 8344 SW Capitol
Highway.
When Food Front started in 1972, it
joined other cooperatives in offering
local produce, meats and other products
generally unavailable in other outlets,
Pugh said. By the time the Hillsdale
store opened in 2008, several non-
member grocers, such as Wild Oats and
New Seasons, were offering organic and
locally grown foods.
The big chains, including Costco and
Kroger, which is Fred Meyer in this
region, now have well-managed organic
sections and local foods, Pugh said.
“This is where the real challenge is for
us,” he said, noting the big stores have
about a 40 percent share of the natural
and organic foods market.
Co-op members have led the way for
growing numbers of people across the
country to seek fresh, seasonal, organic
foods, Pugh said, and other stores are
following that demand.
“We live in a wellness culture,” he
said.
By spring, New Seasons plans to
open a 28,000-square-foot grocery at
Northwest 21st Avenue and Raleigh
Street, only a few blocks from Food
Front. Pugh and Holly Jarvis, Food
Front’s general manager, said they
expect the new store to dampen the
co-op’s business but they believe it can
bounce back with careful planning.
Pugh said a survey revealed employee
complaints about poor communication,
lack of accountability, and fear of
reprisal, but those issues can be solved
with improved leadership and a clear
outline of goals and expectations.
Employee turnover can be reduced
at the Hillsdale store, he said, but other
problems remain.
“People want to shop there, but we
make it too hard for them,” Pugh said.
For instance, hamburger recently was
on sale, but the store didn’t have any
buns in stock. That means shoppers
will go to another store for buns, he
said, and they may decide that’s more
convenient than being disappointed at
Food Front.
Other steps the outside team is
advising: a hiring freeze to minimize
layoffs after New Seasons opens;
reduced administrative costs; pulling
back on benefits that are higher than
industry average and working toward
higher pay, instead.
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