2022 The Fresh Market SE IOY

The Fresh Market builds on history of innovation

by Treva Bennett / senior content creator

The Fresh Market is all about fresh, but it’s also about innovation. Founders Ray and Beverly Berry were innovators when they opened their first store in Greensboro, North Carolina, on March 5, 1982.

Inspiration struck during a trip to Europe, where they experienced the charm and essence of the local food markets. Innovation came as they opened a small, boutique specialty grocery store in the Southeastern U.S.

The opposite of the warehouse-type supermarkets that were popular at the time, The Fresh Market was the Berrys’ dream of creating “a warm and inviting shopping experience, filled with the freshest produce, meats hand-trimmed by butchers in-store, fresh-cut flowers and the finest foods and ingredients from around the world,” according to the company’s website.

The original concept became the blueprint for additional stores as the company expanded to 159 locations in 22 states.

The Fresh Market has continued its innovative ways and, in October 2021, debuted a new concept store right where it all began. The first store, located on Lawndale Drive, has been renovated as a carry-out, fresh-made restaurant concept and exclusive, coffee-by-the-cup experience from Roasting Plant Coffee.

CEO Jason Potter and his team have created a special culinary destination for their customers.

“Our guests seek us out for our high-quality restaurant meals, so the center store concept is an extension of these fresh meals,” Potter said. “Guests can stop by and take home smoked ribs, brisket, choose from a delicious selection of side dishes or take home a stone oven pizza. Not to mention, we have just roasted, just brewed coffee from Roasting Plant Coffee.

“We worked with Doug Zeif from The Concept Gurus to design a fresh food destination within our store and will feature a similar layout in our new store that is opening in Palm Beach Gardens in April of this year.”

Potter said the company has received “very positive” commercial reactions to the new layout.

“I’m excited for what it means for the balance of our business and future stores,” he said.

On being named Innovator of the Year, Potter said he is “just so proud of our team and how we continue to improve the experience for our guests.”

2022 Southeast Innovator of the Year

Improving the guest experience is a top priority for The Fresh Market, which Potter said maintains the highest standards for quality, freshness and food safety. The company’s team members are an essential part of making that happen.

Every job is important

About this section

The Fresh Market has been named The Shelby Report of the Southeast’s Innovator of the Year. On a recent trip to the company’s headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, Treva Bennett visited with leadership to learn more about what makes the grocer so innovative.

“We believe that every job is important, and everyone can make a difference. We strive for our guests to feel welcomed in our stores,” Potter said. “Many of our team members and guests know each other by name and that’s because we encourage our team members to be friendly, informed and provide exceptional service.”

When hiring, Potter said The Fresh Market looks for “people who are willing to provide impeccable guest service and will live out our values. Someone that is friendly with a passion and love for food and who is willing to bring their smile and winning personality to work each day.

“Service is important in how we treat our guests and each other – which we do with fairness, respect and dignity on the job in our warm, friendly, diverse and inclusive environment.”

Potter said The Fresh Market recognizes team member contributions, whether through weekly Town Hall meetings or daily communications.

“We share guest feedback of exceptional service, and the Zoom chat lights up with congratulations and supportive notes from across the company.”

Supporting communities

Another part of The Fresh Market’s culture is to support the communities it serves, Potter said.

“Our team members are very passionate about that aspect of our company as we aim to be a force for good,” he said.

The majority of The Fresh Market’s giving is focused on food security. This past holiday season, the company’s Round Up campaign raised $653,562 for Feeding America, enough to fund 6.5 million meals for families in need.

“Our stores work closely with their local Feeding America food banks to fight food insecurity and build hunger awareness in their local communities,” Potter said. “Additionally, we help the communities where our stores are located and strive to be a force for good when natural disasters occur, like last year’s hurricane in Louisiana.”

Jason Potter

New concept store leads way to future for innovative grocer

by Treva Bennett / senior content creator

Shoppers begin their experience of The Fresh Market before they reach the door, as the entrance is decorated with flowers and plants to match the season or an upcoming holiday.

“We really want to set the tone when the guest comes out of their car – a kind of anticipation of what they’re going to see,” said Dan Portnoy, SVP and chief merchandising officer.

How is The Fresh Market innovative?

Having been named The Shelby Report of the Southeast’s Innovator of the Year, Portnoy led a tour of The Fresh Market’s new concept store in Greensboro, North Carolina. It’s the same location where the company got its start in 1982.

Features of the concept – including The Square, where fresh, restaurant quality foods and Roasting Plant Coffee are available – will be replicated in new stores and those to be remodeled in the future.

In addition to some new exterior signage, Portnoy pointed to the shopping carts.

“One of the things that we looked at, on the guest perspective, is they seem to always want smaller carts. We usually only had a few of these; it was all big carts,” he said. “So we’ve kind of completely changed, adding a lot more smaller carts.”

Guests, with their smaller carts, find themselves first in the floral department, which is filled with a large selection of orchids, tulips and many roses.

“We carry 50-centimeter roses, bigger than most grocery stores, but we focus on and sell what we call the passion roses,” Portnoy said. “They’re much longer, 70 centimeters. And the company actually does all the roses for the Rose Bowl parade and Miss America pageant. For Valentine’s Day, instead of selling the commodity-type roses, we really focused on a higher end, 70-centimeter, double dozen with baby’s breath.”

Portnoy said the flowers set the tone when guests enter. From the floral department, shoppers can take in more of the remodeled store, including The Square and Roasting Plant Coffee in the center, which are the concept’s focal points.

Before reaching the center, there is the produce selection to explore. “About a year ago, we reset all our produce departments,” Portnoy said. “We varied the heights and the color breaks so you can really see everything.

“We’re not a traditional supermarket, we’re very much a specialty retailer. We try to get the special occasion, the fresh trip, the ‘what’s for dinner tonight shoppers.’”

Brian Johnson, SVP of store operations and support, agreed. He added that many of The Fresh Market’s guests come for special things or as a kind of fill-in shop, while others may do all or most of their shopping there.

“While we’re not a supermarket, if you wanted to come in and get all the groceries, you can get all your needs here,” he said.

The Fresh Market’s value-added section also sets it apart. Portnoy said team members prep the items in the back. A new offering is steamer bags. Asparagus or other vegetables will be packaged with different types of seasoned butter or other items. They can be microwaved in minutes, saving time.

“This has been out probably about six weeks or so and is selling extremely well,” he said.

The steamer bags, along with the value-added cut fruit, are made in-store, another difference from many retailers.

Johnson next turned to the in-store guacamole.

“We prepare guacamole fresh every day in the store to a specific recipe. This is consistent throughout the chain,” he said. “And it’s fantastic. I’m from Texas, and I know guacamole – this is really good guacamole.”

Portnoy added that The Fresh Market has a test kitchen and in-house chefs who develop proprietary recipes. The company also works with produce distributors to pre-ripen bananas and avocados.

He also mentioned the mushrooms carried by The Fresh Market. It offers white or portabella mushrooms, as well as shiitaki, oyster, trumpet and other types.

“One of the things we’re known for is a place where chefs can shop,” Portnoy said. “If you are a chef, a home chef or in a restaurant, you can come in and get the things that you want.”

In keeping up with the growing trend, The Fresh Market moved some of its plant-based items next to the mushrooms and to the frozen food section as well, which has helped with sales, Portnoy said.

Along with produce and displays of seasonal items, there is a large candy selection at the front of the store. For upcoming holidays, a concierge station features The Fresh Market magazine and guests can order the special occasion meals the company is known for.

Portnoy said the meat department is the No. 1 reason guests shop at The Fresh Market.

“The two hallmark departments of meat and produce have been here since the Berrys founded [the store] 40 years ago, but meat is really why customers shop here – a lot of good value, a lot of good products,” he said.

The meats are prepared in-store using proprietary recipes – sauces, marinades. Portnoy noted the kebabs in the meat case, made fresh that morning, are geared more toward grilling season. He said they carry a variety of gourmet burgers made from different recipes.

The stars of the meat department are the steaks.

“We carry Grass-Fed, Choice and Prime,” Portnoy said. “It’s the best. It’s really the stuff that goes to restaurants. And we’re trying to appeal to people – instead of going to the restaurant, why don’t you come here?”

In the seafood department, he said The Fresh Market has started selling whole fish. This selection joins the standards of salmon, grouper, shellfish, lobster tails, king crab and crab cakes. The store also is testing whole fish sales in North Carolina after seeing good sales in Florida.

“That’s one of the things we do, always innovate, always try to try,” he said.

Please see page 24

“Our people are the innovators. They’re the ones that say this is something that we should have, something really unique that says The Fresh Market.”

– Dan Portnoy, SVP and chief merchandising officer

Fresh format shines after team navigated remodeling process

by Treva Bennett / senior content creator

The Fresh Market’s Jessi East had a unique role to play in the remodel of the company’s original location on Lawndale Drive into its new concept store. As store manager, she had to navigate the challenges of keeping the store open as construction was under way.

Having started with The Fresh Market 15 years ago, East worked her way up from assistant guest service manager to her current role. She has been at the Greensboro, North Carolina, location for about 12 years.

East’s enthusiasm for the new concept is apparent, as her first word to describe it was “amazing.”

How is The Fresh Market innovative?

“I think that we continue to change with the times. Our convenient meal solutions, just other growth, you can’t get what we do here at other grocery stores.”

“We basically have breakfast, lunch, dinner options – which is something very new for The Fresh Market – and pretty much everything in between,” she said. “It’s geared toward convenient meal solutions, giving our guests an opportunity to come in and get something quick for themselves or their entire family.

“It’s restaurant quality, and we’re doing most everything in house, which is very unique to a grocery store. It’s basically like having a restaurant inside of a grocery store, which is pretty amazing,” she said.

The remodel occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting some challenges for East and her team. Construction delays, equipment and supply chain issues were among the biggest obstacles, she said.

Having the store open during the construction also was a bit challenging for guests, but East said she and her team “tried to make it as seamless as possible.” The store was cleaned of dust and debris every morning, as most of the work occurred overnight. That helped greatly, East said, as guests could shop and not have to listen to construction noise.

After 10 months of renovations, the store celebrated its new concept design in October 2021. The response from guests to The Square and the Roasting Plant Coffee station has been positive. The most popular item in the new Square is “definitely the barbecue,” East said.

“Yes, that’s a huge draw. The barbecue station is a huge hit. And biscuits have been pretty huge.”

The deli case continues to be a guest favorite and the Made to Order Station has been “quite popular,” East said. “Guests being able to make their own salads or sandwiches as a convenient meal solution for a quick lunch or dinner has been a good one, as well.”

East said she is “very passionate” about The Fresh Market.

“I love the people that I work with, the team. We get to collaborate with many different levels across the organization at this store in particular, which is amazing,” she said. “There’s something different going on every day, which I really enjoy.

“I love our guests. They’re very loyal. They love the store, they come in sometimes just to say, ‘hey,’ and check on us. They ask us about our families, and we ask about theirs. It’s really just a very collaborative environment, very family oriented.”

From page 22

Cooking at home made easy

The Fresh Market also is known for its Little Big Meal program.

“This is our value play,” Portnoy said. “This is a big piece of our business and there is a new meal every week. Our chefs in-house develop recipes and many of them are comfort food meals.”

Simple to prepare, Little Big Meals are designed to feed a family of four for a value price.

The Market Meal Kit program is another cost- and timesaving meal option. The program started with the popularity of home delivery kits and, “the secret is fresh made meat, cut in store and fresh produce,” Portnoy said.

Those are combined with a starch, such as potatoes or polenta or rice, which is made for The Fresh Market, and the stores package the meals. A team member signs off on each one, ensuring everything listed is inside.

“This is a big part of our program – restaurant quality,” Portnoy said. “The other thing we learned when we started this is that people want to prepare it in like 15 to 20 minutes in one pan. It’s incredible.”

He alluded again to the steamer bags prepared in the produce section, showing that they also similarly prepare seafood.

“The No. 1 reason why customers don’t want to cook seafood is they’re afraid they don’t know how,” Portnoy said. “And it smells up the house. This [steamer bag] is microwaveable in about three minutes. It’s delicious.”

The Square

Included in the new concept remodel was the installation of a kitchen where the restaurant-quality foods are prepared. Previously, all of the food preparation took place in an open area. Now, everything is taken to the kitchen. Similar to a restaurant, the setup also includes a smoker for barbecue.

“This is a big innovation,” Portnoy said. “This is the biggest thing that we probably have done in many, many years.”

Moving from the back to The Square, where The Fresh Market’s hot foods and Made to Order foods are located, a case containing its “world-class chicken salad” and other deli items is set alongside a salad station.

It includes some signature salads but also allows guests to make their own from a variety of greens, vegetables and proteins. Sandwiches also are ready to grab and go or guests may have their own created.

But the hallmark of The Square and part of the new

concept design is the restaurantquality meals available for takeout.

Signature barbecue choices such as brisket, ribs and pulled pork are the most popular, with a barbecue plate – including two hot sides – for $10.99, Portnoy said.

Sides include Vermont cheddar mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, corn souffle, Brussels sprouts, smoked beans and collards, which sell out almost daily.

Portnoy added that all of the ingredients for the hot foods come from The Fresh Market.

“That was one of the key drivers,” he said. “We want to take our delicious food and produce and meat and bakery and put that all in recipes. And we wanted to have more customability, because that’s kind of the big trend.”

This required different training for team members. “It’s the mindset of more food preparation as opposed to retail and supermarkets,” Portnoy explained. “We’re learning as we go along.”

He added The Square has not taken anything away from prepacked salads or sandwiches.

Another favorite is oven-baked pizzas. Prepared in the back kitchen, the pizzas are finished in a special oven in The Square. They are sold whole or by the slice, made with proprietary dough, Portnoy said.

Also featured is a beer and wine bar, where guests can pick out a beverage to sip as they stroll the store.

Portnoy commented the bakery has many guest favorites, including The Fresh Market’s signature fruit tarts. They are made with 1 pound of fruit. A new loyalty program allows members to receive a free slice of cake on their birthday.

Other signature items in the bakery are croissants and rolls, as well as a selection of breads, including a popular sourdough made from a decades-old proprietary recipe.

The cheese department features about 150 varieties, but but the star item is a Parmigiano Reggiano from a single source dairy, Portnoy said.

“It’s aged a minimum of 24 months,” he said. “Parmesan Reggiano, it’s the king of cheeses.”

Roasting Plant Coffee

Adjacent to The Square is the Roasting Plant Coffee area, where Michael Johnson, director of merchandising and special projects, has samples of a freshly roasted, blended and brewed coffee: Ethiopian bean mocha with rose.

“The floral of the rose plays off the chocolate and the Ethiopian bean like crazy,” he said.

Michael Johnson said The Fresh Market is in a partnership with Roasting Plant Coffee that has been around for 16 years, getting its start in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The company also has stores in Minneapolis, Denver, Detroit and San Francisco, airports and five stores in London.

The Fresh Market is the first and only grocery store partnership in the U.S., he said, and it is the largest model that Roasting Plant Coffee has built.

“It starts with the beans. These are true specialty coffee beans,” he said. “So, the top 1 to 3 percent quality beans in the world, direct relationships with the farms via our roastmaster, Genevieve Kappler, and she gets the beans

– Jessi East, manager of Greensboro, Lawndale store

in for us and then works with our team to create a roast profile specific to each bean that we do every day fresh in-store.

“Guests come to The Fresh Market already for the freshest produce quality. Now we’re teaching them what fresh coffee is. Science shows us that coffee starts to lose its flavor seven to 10 days after roasting. We commit to no longer than three or four days old. And the flavor difference is outstanding.”

Also at The Square, guests can place their order for a cup of coffee and watch as the roasted beans fly overhead through the tubes to be ground and brewed.

“We grind and brew every single cup fresh,” Michael Johnson said. “And we’re the only place you can get a blended coffee on the fly of any three of 14 selections that you would like to create your own special blend.”

Portnoy agreed that The Fresh Market has taken its coffee program to a new level with this program.

“This is our strategy going forward with our new stores and remodeled stores,” he said. “This is like our lab testing it. The whole premise is to drive foot traffic, attract a younger demographic for a kind of local coffee shop feel.”

Portnoy said customer response to the Roasting Plant Coffee program has been “phenomenal.”

Variety of speciality foods

Turning to aisles containing more traditional grocery items, Portnoy noted that The Fresh Market still stands out.

These items include: bulk spices made for The Fresh Market, marinades, sauces and rubs that complement the fresh area; a selection of about 65 oils, including award-winning olive oils and high-end vinegars; pastas and pasta sauces; and many more items curated for the grocer, including its private label items.

A new wine section was included in the concept, featuring more than 650 varieties of wines, including a reserve section and high-end selections along with everyday drinking wine, Portnoy said. Mixers, cocktail syrups, stuffed olives and “the best maraschino cherries in the world” are also found in the area, he said.

As far as beer goes, The Fresh Market is focused on “local, unique, unusual,” Portnoy said. While Miller Lite and Bud Light are available, guests also may create their own six-pack for $10.99.

Refrigerated and frozen cases featured more plantbased items along with eggs, cheese, butter, milk and yogurt.

“It’s not the largest selection of yogurt but there’s some really cool stuff that a lot of people don’t have,” Portnoy said. “We have a lot of guests that are more affluent and travel the world. They know these brands when they see them.”

A lot of time, tasting went into creation of The Square

by Treva Bennett / senior content creator

Diane Cleven has had “the most lucky career in the world.” The VP of deli/CMS/sushi/bakery at The Fresh Market came to the company about 22 years ago, when owner Ray Berry and his son persuaded her to leave the specialty distributor for which she was working.

Cleven joined The Fresh Market because she “fell in love with the integrity that the family had. ”The decision led her to expand her knowledge of the business, especially in perishables, as she continued to advance through the company.

She was brought in to handle grocery, but other departments – dairy, floral and gift center –were gradually added. A couple of years later, the deli department joined her duties.

How is The Fresh Market innovative?

Cleven said The Fresh Market CEO Jason Potter surprised her with the concept for the remodel of the company’s original store on Lawndale Drive in Greensboro, North Carolina. While the company was doing well with its prepared foods, she said it could only do so much.

“I think we did a lot with what we had, but you can’t go to the next level until we did what we did here [Greensboro] at our Lawndale store,” Cleven said.

Potter hired a consulting group that brought in a team whose specialties were hotels and restaurants.

“They brought this restaurant concept, which is what we wanted. We worked in conjunction with the consulting chef to develop the menu for us. And then we did tastings,” Cleven said. There was a good bit of back and forth. And after working on recipes with the consulting chef, The Fresh Market team started developing their own, also.

“We have a corporate chef here, Jarrod Craft,” Cleven said. “He’s very good. We started doing our own ideas. It was super challenging during COVID because we didn’t have an office to work out of.”

Cleven said the company’s smoker “actually lived in my driveway for eight months.” One of the chefs they were working with had a food truck, which also spent time in her driveway. They found an unused bakery facility in town, whose owner was going to shut it down. Cleven said they were allowed to use the facility at no charge. This afforded them kitchen space and a couple of offices.

“There were multiple tastings throughout the process,” she said of developing the menu.

Currently, the menu for The Square is 70 percent from the consulting chef and 30 percent in-house, Cleven said, though that is changing.

The company will be simplifying the Made to Order sandwich and salad stations. The menus will be made to be “more pick your protein, pick your base, pick your toppings.”

Getting the balance right is important. “You have to have a chicken, you have to have a beef, you have to have a vegetarian, you have to have some spicy – that’s the credo of fast casual,” Cleven said.

Making it better

The Fresh Market is all about excellence and the items on The Square’s menu are created to attain that level. Next to the popular barbecue choices, the second busiest station on The Square is biscuits, Cleven said.

“I was in there yesterday morning and a customer came in with his son. He said, ‘We stop by every morning on my way to drop my son at school, and this is the best biscuit in town,’” Cleven said. “I wanted to hug him.”

She said that’s why points of differentiation are important.

“Everybody’s got a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit, but we do it better at The Fresh Market,” she said, noting it features candied bacon. “And for the sausage biscuit, it’s the same sausage that we make in our meat department.”

Ensuring a stable staffing level for The Square has been a priority.

“We needed to make sure that they can execute, which has been a challenge with COVID and turnover and then [winter] weather in January,” Cleven said. “We feel like we’re in a position now to really start going heavy on marketing and getting the stories out there because we can consistently execute.”

Addressing the store opening in April in Palm Beach Gardens, Cleven said it will follow the new concept in everything except biscuits. “We felt that the South Florida market is probably not biscuit driven.”

She said the company will take elements from the concept pilot store and put them into other stores as they open, where the team feels they are right “based on the pro forma for that location.”

Cleven said The Fresh Market is investing heavily in the new concept. “We feel like it’s our future.”

Holiday meals continue to grow

In addition to her input on the new concept, Cleven also is responsible for The Fresh Market’s holiday meal program. She said she created the first Thanksgiving dinner when she took over the deli department in 2004.

That first holiday meal came together “last minute,” and there was “a lot of learning on that one, too. And we were just blown away by how well it did.”

At that time, The Fresh Market had 25 stores and sold nearly 1,000 meals. In 2021, The Fresh Market sold 46,000 Thanksgiving meals.

Following that success, Cleven developed meals for Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Easter. She said they listened to The Fresh Market’s guests and developed smaller meals for smaller families, then also added a deluxe meal.

“We just listen to our guests and try to figure out what they want,” Cleven said. “It has to taste good. I would never sell in our stores what I wouldn’t serve my family or eat myself.”

“We’re an entertaining brand. And I think that’s the most fun thing of all…it allows for a lot of creative innovation.”

– Diane Cleven, VP of deli/CMS/sushi/bakery

Best Supermarket in America known for its ‘impeccable guest service’

by Treva Bennett / senior content creator

Voted the Best Supermarket in America for a second consecutive year by USA Today’s 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards – based on value, selection and service, The Fresh Market’s “impeccable guest service” helped the specialty grocer achieve the honor.

Brian Johnson, SVP of store operations and support, has made it his mission to continue improving customer service since his arrival in July 2020. He came to The Fresh Market from another company known for customer service, Brookshire Grocery Co. in Tyler, Texas.

How is The Fresh Market innovative?

“That’s the only way I know how to do things,” he said.

When he joined The Fresh Market, Johnson said he told the team that the key to guest service is “to be very, very consistent – clear and consistent.”

“I said, we’re going to talk about what the guest service plan is, and as a team, are going to build it,” Johnson said. “We’re going to decide what it’s going to be and what we want to be known for from a service standpoint. And then we’re going to execute the heck out of it. And we’re going to talk about it every single day.”

The foundation of The Fresh Market’s impeccable guest service is simple, Johnson said. “We smile, speak to guests…it is work toward the flow of traffic so that we make sure we’re engaging guests and we don’t have our backs to the guest. It is, if a guest asks where something is, we escort them to the item. We don’t tell them where it is or point at where it is – we take them to the item.”

Team members also are encouraged to use their names. Johnson said they have found that as soon as team members do so, guests will stop and make eye contact.

“As soon as you say your name, it makes it a personal conversation…we try to make that a personal experience by doing that,” he said.

And the last thing a team member does is say, “it’s my pleasure.”

“‘It’s my pleasure’ are the words we talk about and use…it’s all simple, but it’s very difficult to get really good follow through on it,” Johnson said. “The way to do that is just talk about it, talk about it and talk about it.”

Johnson begins every meeting by talking about guest service and recognizing a team member. He gets a copy of each comment that comes in to the guest care department.

“When a team member receives recognition from a guest, I will call the store or email the team member. I recognize them on our weekly company-wide town hall meetings, too,” he said.

“It’s about being consistent. They have to know that it’s important, that we’re not just talking about it but we mean it. And that’s who we’re going to be.”

Identifying and addressing problems quickly also is key to providing impeccable guest service.

Johnson said The Fresh Market is known for its daily and weekly promotions. “That is core to who we are, it’s core to the brand. If we don’t deliver on that at the store and all that goes for naught, we just end up making people mad.”

Communication with the team is key, and Johnson said The Fresh Market has a great team.

“We celebrate a lot of victories,” he said. “When you celebrate the good times and the good things that we’re doing, it makes it much easier to address the opportunities and people will dig into it.”

The goal is to engrain customer service in the fabric of the company.

“That’s the only way you can make a difference with guest service. You can’t just occasionally talk about it, and you can't ever say, ‘We finally got there.’ Because you're never there. There's turnover in our business…it's a constant retraining of the team. That's how we do that.”

Johnson’s involvement with the new concept involved “back of the house, operational things” such as helping make the design as efficient as possible and having as much front-facing space as possible.

His team also helped develop a staffing plan, which requires additional jobs such as a back of the house manager, kitchen manager and additional assistant managers so one is on duty at all times in The Square.

“The guests really love the concept. They love the food,” Johnson said. “We've gotten a lot of great comments about our barbecue, about the pizza. The coffee has been a home run.”

“We’re innovative because of our efforts to ensure our assortment is always relevant and interesting.”

– Brian Johnson, SVP of store operations and support

Goal is to provide ‘friendliest curbside experience in America’

by Treva Bennett / senior content creator

While The Fresh Market is rated among the best in customer service, it is always looking for room to improve. When it came to its curbside pickup service, which became available at all 159 stores in June 2020, The Fresh Market Team wanted it to be hailed for excellence, as well.

Marketing innovations help guide journey to ‘top of the mountain’

by Treva Bennett / senior content creator

How is The Fresh Market innovative?

“We strive to be one of America’s most loved brands, and for us to do that we have to touch every contact point with a guest, whether it’s curbside or delivery, it all has to be part of the same brand,” said Gerrick Polinsky, e-commerce manager of curbside and catalog.

“I think the tactics and strategies for innovation The Fresh Market has are some of the best that I’ve ever seen.”

Kevin Miller came to The Fresh Market as chief marketing officer after having served in the same role for 4.5 years at Natural Grocers, where he had learned a lot about the grocery industry.

– Gerrick Polinsky, e-commerce manager of curbside and catalog

“We needed to take a step back and rethink from the ground up. How do we make curbside just as good as the in-store experience? Through a lot of work, research and collaboration within The Fresh Market across different teams, we developed what we now call the ‘Friendliest Curbside Experience in America.’”

Asked what makes The Fresh Market’s curbside service so special, Polinsky described it as “white glove service.”

“There are things that you’re going to get with The Fresh Market that you’re just not going to see somewhere else,” he said.

For example, when a guest places an order for curbside, they are greeted by their shopper via text.

“The shopper is going to try their best to make sure you’re happy,” Polinsky said.

When the guest arrives at the store, they are going to have a seamless experience. After notifying the store of your arrival, the order comes out quickly.

“It’s all about timing with curbside. We also give our team members a license to go above and beyond,” Polinsky said. “We provide them with stationery to write a little thank you note, just as a personal touch, and put it in the bag. We encourage them to give little gifts here and there. On a hot day, you might get a free bottle of water.”

Another way to go above and beyond is to have every order double checked, verified and signed by the manager on duty.

A recent innovation allows guests to pre-approve substitutions for certain items. However, if the guest didn’t do this or one is not available, The Fresh Market shoppers are trained on how to select the best item.

The response to the upgraded curbside service has been positive, Polinsky said, as the stores receive thank you messages, such as how a shopper did a “fantastic job” with an order or the shopper made it “more of an experience than a transaction.”

In-house shoppers provide curbside service

The Fresh Market provides its own personal shoppers for its curbside program. The company has developed an in-house training program that Polinsky said “covers all the bases, everything you need to know from the basics to the things that we’ve developed to be above and beyond other retailers. It is specific to curbside.”

He is in communication with the shoppers every day.

“They’re very engaged,” he said. “If something isn’t going the way they expect it, they call me and we fix it together. I think just having that open line of communication empowers them.”

Chocolate makes Mondays better

The company has made one gift – a 0.3-oz. square of Himalayan Pink Sea Salt Dark Chocolate – a permanent occasion on Mondays.

The Chocolate Lovers Monday promotion began on Aug. 30, 2021.

The idea came from the marketing and merchandising teams, Polinsky said. The operations team helped to execute the idea.

“It was a total company effort,” he said.

Since the program began, there has been growth on Mondays for curbside service.

“I think today it’s something our guests both love and expect,” he said. “It’s really become a staple of the curbside experience.”

Again, customer service is the key. As The Fresh Market strives to provide “impeccable guest service” to its guests in the store, that goal also transfers to the curbside program.

“Looking back, every single thing we did for innovating the ‘Friendliest Curbside Experience in America’ was for the guest,” Polinsky said. “It’s all we talked about. And we ended up with a really impressive experience.”

The job of CMO at The Fresh Market was “an opportunity to further apply some of that knowledge. It was a terrific chance for me to apply everything I’ve learned over about 30 or 40 years [in food retail] and to have a really big impact on the company and in the industry,” Miller said.

How

is The Fresh Market innovative?

“We’ve got a dynamic environment of a lot of really passionate people who understand the strategy and who are empowered to go out and make things happen.”

– Kevin Miller, chief marketing officer

His career, primarily in QSR, also included time with McDonald’s, CocaCola USA, Pizza Hut and ABC Disney-radio division.

“A lot of food, a lot of entertainment,” Miller said. “You put those two pieces together and that’s a lot of what The Fresh Market is about. The entertaining experience of shopping with high quality food and service and value. It’s a terrific combination. I use all of my skills here. It’s a lot of fun.”

Unique in the category

Miller described The Fresh Market as a specialty food retailer that is “unique in the category.” He said it started with the company’s founders, Ray and Beverly Berry, who discovered European food markets and wanted to bring that back to America.

“They wanted to zig while, during that time, most grocery retail chains were zagging – building bigger, gigantic stores…super stores,” Miller said. “But they wanted it to be more intimate, more personal. They wanted to excite the senses and reward you for spending your time [there].”

He spoke of walking into a “cornucopia of flowers,” seeing the “beautiful produce, smelling the coffee” brewing and listening to classical music over the speakers. The lighting is low-key and warm.

“Within the experience is one of, again, discovery where you find some of the world’s best fresh foods,” Miller said. “Our focus is primarily on fresh. We want to really be the place where you get your fresh stuff.

“We search the world to curate some of the hard-to-find items that you would normally not find anywhere else…our curators, category managers look for those things that are really uber premium and [with] taste being the absolute pinnacle of what must be delivered first.”

According to Miller, The Fresh Market wants to have a reputation as the best shopping experience – just as important as the food and products.

“We want that experience to be anchored in joy, anticipation and trust,” he said.

Measuring customer satisfaction

The Fresh Market measures its customer satisfaction with an ongoing tracking study. In the last quarter of the past couple of years, the company has hit all-time highs.

“We actually do measurements where we compare our customer satisfaction scores with our actual sales transactions,” Miller explained. “We can do direct correlations, we append that data and we’re able to see the impact of when our employees give our guests the key elements of impeccable guest service.

“We focus on our e-commerce as well, as we want that experience to match, maybe exceed what our customers get in the store.”

The new curbside program rollout coincided with the first holidays during

the COVID-19 pandemic. Miller said company officials knew there would be a strong demand for e-commerce and curbside.

“We set a vision that we wanted to become the friendliest curbside experience in America, and that was the branding umbrella around all the development work,” he said. “Then we looked at the metrics around that improvement, and we created a new position…the personal shopper.”

The curbside service was moved in-house as The Fresh Market team members know the stores, location of items and can turn orders around quickly.

“We integrated all those pieces, and we developed a platform that included personal touches and the IT touches,” Miller said. “We launched it as the ‘Friendliest Curbside Experience in America.’”

He said the company immediately saw its metrics improve.

“It was really successful,” Miller said. “We feel that it is probably the best curbside experience in America, in addition to being the friendliest. The other thing that’s really cool about that is we bring the human touch – that joy, anticipation – and we create unique experiences.”

Loyalty program now offered

The Fresh Market recently launched a loyalty program.

“We were going to build this from the ground up for our guests, our brand,” Miller said. “We again did a lot of research before we launched.”

He said they searched for the world’s best loyalty and e-commerce platforms and hired another consulting firm to assist with the project.

“We were able to benchmark the features, functions, value propositions, orders, structures of all the world’s best loyalty programs. Then we customized some concepts around those features,” he said. “And we talked to our guests across the country, over a two- or three-month period.”

From there, the company was able to develop a program customers sought.

“We built it from the customer up. That’s why we call it the Ultimate Loyalty Experience. It’s an experience, not just about rewards,” Miller said.

Following “really strong” results from a six-month test period, the program rolled out in March. It includes loyalty pricing, member clubs and a free slice of birthday cake.

“The fact that we’re helping them celebrate their birthday, again, brings that connection back to the brand – the joy, the anticipation,” he said

Sharing stories of speciality retailer, its team members

by Treva Bennett / senior content creator

The Fresh Market Magazine was created during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to bring the store to the specialty retailer’s guests, sharing its stories while they stayed home more, according to Gloria Reardon, director of products/occasions and meal solutions.

“I would say our brand is a very experiential brand – you have to be in the store and see it, smell it, touch it. It's a place to explore, if you're very interested in food,” Reardon said. “We're very trend forward.”

How is The Fresh Market innovative?

She said Chief Marketing Officer Kevin Miller thought a magazine would be “a great way to let people shop our stores without having to leave the comfort or safety of their home at the time,” she said. “…It's been an evolution ever since it launched.”

Miller said he thought a magazine could tell the stories of The Fresh Market in detail and in a way that would be engaging and entertaining.

“If you’re going to be about bringing together and curating the world’s best foods and hard-tofind foods from around the world, you’ve got to tell stories…you’ve got to educate [the customers] but also entertain and engage them,” he said.

Miller had noticed the marketing team was “terrifically talented” in photography and other areas, which he viewed as an opportunity to create “one of the world’s best food magazines.”

The idea was to make the store come alive in the magazine, which features florals up front, then produce, seafood and other departments. “It’s like walking through the store on your couch,” Miller said.

The content is “an amalgamation of a few things,” Reardon said.

“We incorporate trends and what's new, what's hot,” she said. “The other piece is the merchants also bringing in new products or new things that are trendy or the newest flavor.”

It also plays into a national trend calendar Reardon puts together.

“All of this feeds into the idea bucket – basically, prioritization of message and then what do we really want to focus on at that time of year,” she said.

Celebrity chefs, team members

The magazine also shines a spotlight on people as it features interviews with celebrity chefs and team members of The Fresh Market.

For example, for the June 2021 issue, Marcus Samuelsson was featured and the interview focused on Juneteenth.

“We wanted to talk about it, but we wanted it through his perspective, his lens,” Reardon said. “And he also has Red Rooster, which is one of the most prevalent soul food kitchens in Harlem. He had just launched a new book [which is] about soul food.”

The magazine uses its monthly features to talk about diversity and bring culturally diverse chefs onto the stage along with their innovative ways of preparing food.

“We had Shirley Chung in the magazine for November,” Reardon said. “She talked about Chinese heritage cooking, and we gave away some of her cookbooks.”

Miller said the brand is “all about food, folks and fun,” which is why employees are featured in the magazine.

“The idea is to really give a personable nature with the brand and show the people who are behind the curation of our products and just talk about them and their experience and history with the brand,” Reardon said. “This month, it's Brandon Tilly. He's our seafood guy, category manager.”

Recipes

In addition to the food, products, meals and people in the magazine, recipes appear throughout. Besides chefs on the team, many of the employees are foodies who help with recipe development.

The grocer also hires consultants and others to develop recipes, especially if the team is trying to “hone in on a specific flavor or figure out the best way to use a particular ingredient or find a new way to use something,” Reardon said.

The team makes sure the recipes work.

“They’re run through a litmus test that’s pretty rigorous,” Reardon said. “Before we publish it, we make sure that it absolutely works.”

This includes converting measurements from recipes from international chefs to the American equivalent.

Also, The Fresh Market Magazine uses QR codes with many of its recipes.

“If there's something that you want to cook, when we have things all merchandised together, you can hit a QR code and you can shop by recipe,” Reardon said.

Key to integration

The magazine also provides monthly content for the company’s various digital channels. “This takes the print content to create stories and be informative and inspirational to guests about food, especially in a time where people are at home, they’re cooking more, they’re looking to try new things. Through the lens of digital, that’s the place where they could learn about these new things,” Reardon said. “It’s still evolving.”

As Miller noted, “You’ll see that we repurpose the content in the magazine. The storytelling in the magazine is used for our emails, our social content, outdoor ads – it’s throughout. There’s a consistent message, look, feel, tone and down to the last word of the copy that comes from and emanates from the magazine that we use across all our platforms.”

E-commerce growing

Another area of integration is between the magazine and The Fresh Market app. Reardon said much of the groupings of food and/or products and/or topics are frequently created as collections.

“We’re creating collections so people can be very particular with how they shop,” she said, adding that a big trend is that more people are shopping with their values.

Miller said there is a lot of integration with QR codes. As customers read the magazine, they can create their shopping list and buy from their phone, via the app.

“I’m working for a brand that is trend forward, out in front of it, willing to do innovative things.”

– Gloria Reardon, director of products/occasions and meal solutions