Longtime Outpost Natural Foods general manager Pam Mehnert joins BizTimes Media’s Maredithe Meyer and Arthur Thomas to discuss her career and retirement plans, the growth of the co-op grocer from one store to four and now nearly $50 million in sales, her approach to leadership and the advice she is passing on to her successor.
Here are some of the insights Mehnert shared during the episode. For more, listen to the full conversation in the player above or at the podcast feeds listed below:
Mehnert’s leadership style
“My style is collaborative and so that’s how we’ve worked … I know I’ve got the final decision to make and I try to do it by building consensus among the team, but you have to do that to a point where consensus is getting you to a good idea and not just settling for something,” Mehnert said.
The importance of vendor relationships
Outpost has grown to now have around 175 local and regional vendors, many of whom the company has long-term relationships with.
“I’m not a purchaser, so I haven’t done this work, from my perspective, the relationship is so much more important than other aspects of the deal,” Mehnert said.
She pointed to examples where a poultry producer had its product turned down by a larger customer because of sizing variance and Outpost was able to take and sell the product. In another case, a local fruit farm had its apple crop damaged by hail and the Outpost team still took the product and helped customers understand why the fruit looked a certain way and was still able to sell it.
Challenges of consumer trends
Mehnert discussed how Outpost has dealt with growing popularity of local and organic products, which is a win for the company’s mission, but also means greater competition from other grocers.
She also discussed how growing consumer preference for convenience is challenging for the co-op as it tries to meet is larger mission.
“In terms of trends, the most challenging today is convenience. We are a society today that wants things when we want them … conveniences has its costs. It’s great today we can meet the needs where we can meet them, but at what cost?” Mehnert said, highlighting greater use of plastic, more disposable items and labor wasted on unused foods as some of the challenges.
