Women in Grocery

By Marcy Nathan with McNally Sislo Photos by Channing Candies

What might come as a surprise is that a woman buys all of the live Louisiana crawfish we sell at Rouses Markets — more than 4 million pounds every crawfish season. Denise Englade is our Director of Seafood. She has worked in seafood almost her entire career.

“I was a young mother of three boys living in Washington State, and I needed insurance. I went to my local Safeway and applied for a job making sandwiches. The store manager knew that I was raised in Louisiana, and that I had worked in a sandwich shop that also had a small seafood display. He said, ‘We will pay you $3.50 an hour to make sandwiches, or $6.50 an hour to work in seafood.’ It was a no-brainer.

“I went from part-time in seafood, to full-time, to running the seafood department at that Safeway, then at other stores in Washington State, and eventually worked my way into a director’s role."

“When my mom developed Parkinson’s, I knew it was time to come home. I saw an ad for Rouses Markets that said, ‘We are looking for good people,’ and I reached out to the Director of Human Resources. ‘I’m good people,’ I told him.

“I’m now on my second stint at Rouses Markets. When my parents got really sick, Rouses Markets allowed me take some time off to care for them. Eventually, I had to step away to care for them full-time.” When Denise was ready, Rouses Markets hired her back.

“When I was starting out in Washington State, they were just putting seafood departments in grocery stores; seafood fell under the meat market, and all of the meat managers were men. Most of the stores I direct for Rouses Markets have seafood departments. Most of our stores even feature seafood boiling rooms. There are more and more women in the business, which is really encouraging, and I am working with more women on the vendor side. Two of my three seafood merchandisers are women.

“As I moved up in seafood , and I started going to seafood shows, like the big one in Boston, I was one of the few women at the show who wasn’t there as someone’s wife.” In March, Denise is a featured panelist at that big Boston show — the Seafood Expo of North America.

Julie Joy, Director of Beer, Wine & Spirits, still sets stores in the calling order from the liquor gun dispenser she used as a bartender before and during college — Scotch, Whiskey, Bourbon, Gin, Vodka, Rum, Tequila.

Her first job in retail was as a cheese and snack buyer for a major wine and spirits store. “After I was promoted to store manager, I had to learn all about liquor, beer — even cigars. There wasn’t a question I couldn’t answer or find the answer to.”

Julie learned about allocations, pricing and quantity discounts, and how to market alcohol as she moved up to regional manager, then national manager, then a director of beer, wine & spirits.

Her specialty is private label. “It’s all about giving you a better value at a better price.” Have you ever tried the wine Cupcake? Julie helped develop the brand. “My manager at the time thought Cupcake was too girly for our company, so we didn’t keep it as an exclusive.” Ironically, according to Nielsen numbers, 57% of wine consumers are women.

“When you start off with something like Cupcake, everyone stares at you like, what’s next? Eventually, I took a year off to find my next adventure. During that time I perfected my own Margarita recipe, and learned to make the famous Irish coffee created at the Buena vista in San Francisco."

“In the wine industry, there is no better place to work than in grocery. Grabbing the attention of customers as they think about food and wine at the same time is the dream. Rouses brings the ultimate food experience, and I am thrilled to be part of the ultimate beer, wine & spirit experience for our customers.”

Julie is growing private label for us, so expect some great value bottles to stock up on. And expect more bourbons and other spirits in our Rouses Barrel House stores. “Now we see all sorts of spirits being aged in different barrels — cognac, sherry, wine, you name it. We are doing several great barrel picks with the best bourbons and whiskeys available. There is always something fun and new happening, and they all turn out different.”

It’s not uncommon for companies to have a 50/50 gender parity, or something close to it, in entry-level positions. But the proportion of women workers usually drops from there, and continues to drop the higher up the ladder you go.

But not here. We have woman department directors, store directors, category managers, merchandisers and managers. As Dean of Rouses University, Ashley Bond Candebat leads our training program, which includes in-person and online training. Michelle Knight is our Bakery Director in charge of 64 stores. Susan Sistrunk has been our Floral Director since 2007. Celeste Hildago, our Controller, oversees our daily accounting operations. She has been with us for more than 35 years.

Amanda Kennedy, our Senior Manager for Brand & Marketing Strategy, is just as passionate about our private label offerings as Julie Joy is. Amanda oversees our private label design for grocery and fresh products.

For the fourth consecutive year in grocery, private label — especially premium private like our Rouses Markets brand — has surpassed name brands in year-over-year sales growth.

Before we can even think about bringing a new product to the shelf, Amanda sets up a cutting, which is when we taste-test options to compare between suppliers. We only create private label products when we find items we believe in and want to share with our customers. Our buyers then partner directly with the brand or manufacturer, which keeps the costs low.

“I love seeing it all come together, from that first taste-testing, to the label design — there is so much pressure on that label; we know you have to buy it in order to try it, so we want it to appeal to you — to seeing the product on our shelves. The process is challenging but very rewarding.”

Last year Amanda was named a Rising Star in the August 2021 issue of Store Brands magazine — and made the cover. Taryn Clement leads planning and strategy for our e-Commerce, the fastest growing segment of our business. Women are, unfortunately, underrepresented in tech. “A lot of times, I’m the only woman in the room,” says Taryn.

E-Commerce has revolutionized the way we shop. Taryn just helped launch our new Rouses Markets Shopping App, which you can download on the App Store or on Google Play. There is no curbside pickup fee on orders over $35, and you pay the same price as in-store. Our own team members — the people who know our stores and selection better than anyone else — hand-select every product ordered for curbside pickup. It’s like having your favorite Rouses Markets team member as your own personal shopper.

Taryn keeps up with ever-changing technology, as well as customer preferences that continue to evolve, but to her, e-Commerce comes down to consistent convenience and customer service.

“I’m a working mom with two young kids, so I understand the necessity of e-Commerce, especially our new curbside pickup,” says Clement. “If you’re a new mom like me, or a caregiver for your own

parents who now has to do the grocery shopping for two households, or you are a suddenly single dad who needs that extra help, I get it.” Taryn says Rouses Markets gets it, too. “The company has been great about accommodating my needs as a mom.”

But for some working moms, there are days when you feel like wherever you are, at work or at home, you should be somewhere else. Stacy Wiggins, our Regional Vice President of Operations, says sticking to your commitments will help you find work-life balance, or at least let go of the guilt.

“When my husband and I left the military, we relocated to Pennsylvania. I applied for a seasonal position at Walmart and, to my surprise, I immediately fell in love with retail. The military really taught me the importance of teamwork and taking care of one another, and retail is not really that much different. I love taking care of customers and being a part of something that is good for the community. When the holidays were over, and I was asked to stay on full-time, I said yes.”

Stacy went from that part-time career, to store manager, to district manager, to a job working for a big East Coast grocery chain. When she took a promotion in New Jersey, her kids stayed back in Maryland with her husband. She came home every weekend.

Her son had a baseball game on a Friday night, and she made a commitment to him that she would make the game: “I might not be there for the first pitch, but I would be there.” She drove three-and-ahalf hours to the game that night and made it just as he was coming up to bat. “When he rounded home plate, he looked at me and grinned.

“After the game, he said, ‘I knew you would make it.’ It was at that moment that I truly realized what it meant to do what I said I would, even if I couldn’t be there the entire time. It’s not always the amount of time, it’s the quality of the time that matters most.”

Stacy is responsible for overseeing our entire East region, which stretches from New Orleans, Louisiana, through Orange Beach, Alabama. She has been named to Progressive Grocer’s Top Women in Grocery list three times.

Jennipher Landry is an Assistant Store Director. She is involved in everything from hiring, training and managing employees, to supervising inventory and monitoring sales.

She says: “Sometimes new customers, salesmen or vendors just assume I’m not in charge because I’m a woman.”

“There are always challenges,” acknowledges Stacy Wiggins, who oversees Jennipher’s regional district, “but we don’t let that stop us.”

Jennipher started as a cashier in 2006, then moved to front-end manager responsible for overseeing all of the cashiers and customer service at the store. Handed the opportunity to move even further up in store leadership, she turned it down.

“I had the best supervisor, Monique Hemelt, who was our Customer Service Specialist for the entire company, and I wanted to work for her. She took so much pride in her work.”

Monique passed away in 2016, and “we literally had to fill her position with multiple people,” says Ali Rouse Royster, third-generation family member. “She was one-of-a-kind, for sure.”

“After that, I was ready to move up; I knew I had more to give,” says Jennipher.

Jennipher honed her management skills at several Rouses Markets. “Every store is unique. The teams are smaller at the smaller stores, and bigger at the bigger stores. Both sizes present their own unique managements challenges, but you still have to make sure the departments are performing well in every area.”

Jennipher has been an Assistant Store Director at our Freret location since it opened in May 2021. “When the time is right, I hope to join the ranks of our women store directors like Donna Madere and Michelle LeBlanc who set the path for others to follow.”

“You can count on that,” says Stacy Wiggins.