When it comes to sustainability and resource management, we typically think of workplace practices like energy efficiency, food waste diversion, recycling and refrigerant management.
These aspects of food retail have the potential to provide significant benefits to the bottom line when managed resourcefully. But managing these aspects effectively provides another benefit – it helps the independent retailer tell or bolster its story, increase market share and sales.
During the recent NGA Executive Conference, a familiar food retail mantra “reduce costs, reduce costs, reduce costs” seemingly was replaced in multiple sessions by several featured speakers imploring independents to “tell your story, tell your story, tell your story.” Both mantras align with effective resource management and operational sustainability.
Improving store performance through operational precision boosts profit margin. Telling your story by leveraging data for effective resource management can increase customer loyalty, drive market share and overall sales.
Start where you are
The first step to managing resources more sustainably is to figure out where your business is today. Start where you are. The business does not need to be the Patagonia of food retail to start telling its story.
Benchmarking the business helps understand and quantify the situation. Using a common standard helps identify opportunities for improvement and the respective value.
Implementing just one or two opportunities can bolster the story of the business and its commitment to the community.
Great story to tell
The independent grocery store is one of the most important resource centers in a community. Many neighborhood stores provide jobs and communication, financial, health and pharmacy services. They often offer the majority of everything needed to sustain families.
Local independent grocery stores are pillars of their communities whose total impact goes far beyond providing fresh meat, produce and dairy. These pillars sponsor youth sports, community events and provide assistance and donations to the elderly and those in need. In times of challenge and crisis (storms, fires floods and pandemics), many can stay open and continue serving their communities.
Many independent retailers may not want to “toot their own horns.” But by not telling their stories, they are losing market share. Sometimes, a business needs help in understanding its story before it can be effectively told. Leveraging data, process and precision is a great way to know and tell that story.
New story for Baltimore IGA
In 2024, in partnership with IGA, Baltimore IGA of Baltimore, Ohio, benchmarked its store for operational sustainability.
The resulting data provided insights for capital improvements and was a key input for a Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The final project was completed at the end of the second quarter of 2025.
That project included improving the operations, storage and merchandising of fresh produce. The demonstrable in-store improvements – and the store telling the community about them – resulted in a 100 percent increase in year-over-year fresh sales in the third quarter and a double-digit increase in overall sales.
Coupled with a reduction of food waste, electricity consumption and maintenance and repair costs, pro forma net profits are three times that of 2024.
Baltimore IGA is “reducing costs, reducing costs, reducing costs” (tripling its profit margin) and leveraging its benchmarking data and ongoing process improvement to continue telling its story.
Grocery POP! is a mission-driven consultancy focused on supporting food retail with “Performance through Operational Precision.” Grocery POP! is transforming food retail operations through data-driven insights, sustainable practices and measurable performance improvements through their POP-through processes. Peter Cooke can be contacted at [email protected].